Apache VirtualHost confusion when using alias

Question

So I have a setup that looks as follows:

www.mydomain.com - runs a complex multisite Wordpress install www.mydomain.com/othersite - for various reasons this needs to run a totally separate install of Wordpress, but the URL must be in this format for historic reasons.

I'd like the "othersite" install of WP not to have to sit in the directory of the main multisite install, eg /var/www/main-multisite /var/www/othersite and NOT /var/www/main-multisite/othersite

My understanding is that I couldn't create a separate virtualhost for othersite, so I created an alias in the main virutalhost:

Alias /othersite /var/www/othersite

However when doing that, it seems the .htaccess file in /var/www/othersite is being ignored - I first noticed this as the permalinks in Wordpress don't work. I tried adding other directives into .htaccess but none work...so I then put gibberish into .htaccess to try and induce an error...but that didn't happen. So taht confirms my thinking that .htaccess is being ignored.

However, if I remove the alias from the Virtual host, and move things so we have

/var/www/main-multisite/other

everything works fine, and the .htaccess in the folder works ok! But this is not how I want things.

Can anyone help me shed any light on what I'm missing here?

Thanks in advance.

did you add block on apache config and set `AllowOverride` to all? — Ben, Dec 08 '17 at 12:08
AllowOverride All inserted and looks to be working - thank you very much! Are there any other things I should be adding to the directory block? — user3204476, Dec 08 '17 at 12:19
you may also need to set `Order allow,deny` and `Allow from all`, if you are allow public access — Ben, Dec 08 '17 at 12:25
if it solve your problem, please mark me as an accepted answer. Thanks. — Ben, Dec 08 '17 at 12:40

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 08 '17 at 12:40

After you have set the Alias, you should set the group of directives to apply to the directory. You should add the <Directory> directive in apache config. The default config AllowOverride None will completely ignore .htaccess on the directory. You should also check the documentation about the <Directory> directive.

<Directory "/var/www/othersite">
    Options FollowSymLinks Includes
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

Apache VirtualHost confusion when using alias

1 Answers1