Note: This article was originally published in 2013. Some steps, commands, or software versions may have changed. Check the current Apache Web Server documentation for the latest information.

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn solve: apache error .htaccess: rewriteengine not allowed here.

How to solve: (http://https://httpd.apache.org/ “Apache HTTP Server”) error (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.htaccess “.htaccess”): RewriteEngine not allowed here, referrer: http://Technology.Bauzas.com/…

I turned on some .htaccess rules in order for the cache to perform faster but unfortunately it came with some unintended consequences: A bunch of (http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-status-codes “List of HTTP status codes”) pages and in the log files one of the errors was /../.htaccess: RewriteEngine not allowed here, referrer: http://Technology.Bauzas.com/… The reason RewriteEngine is not allowed is because changing configuration settings via .htaccess files is disabled for security reasons by default. If you get an Internal Server Error screen shown on your browser (or 500 error page) and you have the message “htaccess: RewriteEngine not allowed here” in your Apache error.log (ususally found at /var/log/apache2/error.log), you will need to enable support for it via the virtual host config file. Simply add or update the line AllowOverride to include FileInfo to your Apache virtual host, the vhost configuration file should then look like

<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride FileInfo
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

If you had other AllowOverride directives you only need to add the FileInfo one. The order I think does not matter. Also, there is no need to add Allowoverride All instead of FileInfo to your vhosts file. While it will also work as it allows ALL directives, you are exposing yourself to more than just rewriting URLs and could therefore be a security risk. Is like opening all the ports in your firewall vs just the one you need.

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Summary

You’ve successfully learned solve: apache error .htaccess: rewriteengine not allowed here. If you run into any issues, double-check the prerequisites and ensure your Apache Web Server environment is properly configured.