If you are using XAMPP for development on a CMS or Blogging platform such as WordPress you will probably want to enable clean URLS with XAMPP mod_rewrite. If you found this post, chances are that you know what you are looking for. But, for those of you who don’t know what clean URLS are, imagine your site as www.yoursite.com/page.php?page=19838302 versus www.yoursite.com/page-name/.
There are many reasons why it is desireable to enable XAMPP mod_rewrite, one is that URLS look better. Second, if you are developing your site locally, you can setup your clean URLS before launching live, and third, there are many SEO benefits to having clean URLS.
XAMPP mod_rewrite – How to Enable
To enable XAMPP mod_rewrite, you need to change a setting in your httpd.conf file which is located at xampp\apache\conf. Before making any changes, I highly recommend creating a backup of this file. Make a copy of the file and rename it httpd.conf.bak.
Once you have completed backing up your httpd.conf file, open it up in notepad (I love notepad++, if you don’t have it, highly recommended). Find the line that says “#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so” this should be around line 117-120. Remove the “#” symbol. Save the file and restart Apache.
If you are having some troubles, here is another suggestion given by Dan Murfitt at http://murfitt.net/comment/693:
You want to make sure to close the httpd.conf file before restarting Apache as this file might remained locked from opening to edit. Also, if you are still having troubles getting your clean URLS to work with XAMPP mod_rewrite, you may need to add an ‘AllowOverride All’ in your httpd.conf file. You will need to search for it and be sure to save and close after you are done adding this tweak:
<Directory “/opt/lampp/htdocs”>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI Includes
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
As always, for questions, comments or suggestions – comment at the bottom.
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