Enable htaccess error on Ubuntu 12.04 with Apache2

Question

I tried to enable htaccess. I changed:

<Directory /var/www/abc.biz/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

To:

<Directory /var/www/abc.biz/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

But I'm getting 500 (Internal Server) error. Why?

Here is my /etc/apache2/sites-available/default file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]

DocumentRoot /var/www/abc.biz
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/abc.biz/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride None
    Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn

CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
<Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
    Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
</Directory>

</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

I think you need to change this part of your /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

DocumentRoot /var/www/abc.biz
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/abc.biz/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

to

DocumentRoot /var/www/abc.biz
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/abc.biz/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

Because at first <Directory /> AllowOverride All you allow to override settings with your .htaccess file for the whole apache, but also you need to change it at <Directory /var/www/abc.biz/> AllowOverride All for your specific host directory, where your web site is placed. Also you should check .htaccess files placed in your /var/www/abc.biz directory to be correctly writen, because when you enable .htaccess files to override global apache settings wrong .htaccess file causes such error.