Apache2 not displaying one directory, causing .htaccess rules to fail. What's wrong?

Question

I have a CodeIgniter installation in a VirtualHost on Apache2 on Ubunto Natty set up as follows:

/application
/system
...
/www/index.php

Here is my .htaccess which resides in /:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteBase /

        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^system.*
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /www/index.php?/$1 [L]

        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^application.*
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /www/index.php?/$1 [L]

        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /www/index.php?/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
        ErrorDocument 404 /www/index.php
</IfModule>

What I see, when I navigate to the site, is the attached picture:

Here's what I see when I run ls -al in /:

total 44
drwxr-xr-x  8 admin admin 4096 2011-09-06 00:35 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 admin admin 4096 2011-09-04 06:36 ..
drwxr-xr-x 12 admin admin 4096 2011-09-04 06:29 application
-rw-r--r--  1 admin admin   94 2011-09-05 18:53 .hg_archival.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 admin admin  431 2011-09-06 00:35 .htaccess
-rw-r--r--  1 admin admin 2496 2011-09-05 18:53 license.txt
drwxr-xr-x  2 admin admin 4096 2011-09-06 00:32 logs
drwxr-xr-x 10 admin admin 4096 2011-09-04 06:29 system
drwxr-xr-x  2 admin admin 4096 2011-09-06 00:30 test
drwxr-xr-x 11 admin admin 4096 2011-09-04 06:29 user_guide
drwxr-xr-x  5 admin admin 4096 2011-09-04 06:29 www

What do I need to change so that my www folder appears, allowing my ReWriteRule to work, or is that even the problem?

P.S. Should mention that my files arrive in this folder via a post-receive Git hook after being pushed to a repository elsewhere on the server. I don't think it matters because every file seems to be arriving, but I'll mention it.

Answer 1

You don't want to set your INDEX page to a 404 page, otherwise it will not load. Simple. Try this:

If you want to have a www-redirect, make a v-host with just your external IP.

#vHosts Config:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([^\.]+\.[^\.]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%1/$1 [R=301,L]
<Directory "C:/xampp/htroot">
    AllowOverride All
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

otherwise put this in a .htaccess file in the root directory of the site

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([^\.]+\.[^\.]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%1/$1 [R=301,L]

and MAKE SURE you allow indexes and the goody-two-shoes options directives. That should fix you.

EDIT: You can pretty much remove the "ifmodule" tags. Try it that way too. At least explain what your problem is, it's a little bland.