mod_rewrite error installing Omeka 3.2.1 on Apache 2.2.1

Hello!

I am working with my university's IT department to set up Omeka on a red hat server I do not have access to myself. There is another piece of software installed on this server which listens on port 80, so IT has put omeka in with port 8080.

When I go to [foo]/omeka:8080/install/ I get the (apparently well-known!) "mod_rewrite is not enabled" error. I checked with firebug and we are running Apache 2.2.1, which seems to be the version of Apache that makes this error occur.

mod_rewrite is enabled and IT has turned on and filled in the RewriteBase line in the .htaccess file accordingly, but still no luck.

I tried install/install.php but all I was given was a "Success!" note, and nothing actually works still, so I don't think it did anything.

Any ideas as to whether the difference in port may be playing havoc with mod_rewrite somehow? Or is there another common solution I've somehow overlooked?

Any advice I can pass on to our IT folks would be greatly appreciated.

Let me respond to a couple of points:

First, Apache 2.2.1 should be fine, the bug with the installer's check not working is with specific 2.4 sub-versions.

I assume your URL is actually "[foo]:8080/omeka", not "[foo]/omeka:8080". You said IT filled in the RewriteBase line. Do you know what they put in there? If your URL is "[foo]:8080/omeka", the RewriteBase should be "/omeka/".

What do you mean exactly when you say "nothing actually works still" after you bypassed the check and went through the install. The telltale sign of mod_rewrite problems post-install is being able to go to the front page of the public site and the admin dashboard, but no other URLs.

The first thing to check if you're sure mod_rewrite is enabled but it's still not working is whether the server is reading .htaccess files at all (that's the AllowOverride setting).

Thanks, John, for your prompt reply.

Good to know Apache isn't likely to be the problem!

It's actually omeka.wou.edu:8080 (not sure why I put the other one) and the RewriteBase line is correct to the best of my knowledge.

The telltale sign of mod_rewrite problems post-install is being able to go to the front page of the public site and the admin dashboard, but no other URLs.

This is what's happening. My apologies for vagueness!

I'll check on AllowOverride and see what they say--thanks again!

Here's the AllowOverride settings from the httpd.conf file for the server:

#
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
# Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
AllowOverride All

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

The base directory is webvol, which is what's in RewriteBase, and I'm still getting the mod_rewrite error while trying to access the installation pages.

The base directory is webvol, which is what's in RewriteBase

RewriteBase is always based on what's in the URL, not on the local filesystem path. From what you've said, it sounds like Omeka's in the root of a subdomain, so the RewriteBase, if you specify it, should be RewriteBase /.

Thanks. I wondered about that, but commenting it out didn't seem to change anything either, unfortunately. (Initially it was not specified, and we tried specifying it because we were getting the error.)

IT is checking to see if there's an issue with the port or server configuration in some other way at the moment.

It doesn't seem like there is any issue with port or server configuration that might be causing this on the IT side of things.

Has anybody successfully installed and run Omeka on port 8080 in the past? I'm wondering if that explicit port declaration is somehow causing it to fail.