Understanding Mod_rewrite

Without this function working correctly, the whole export process will fail. Mod-rewrite is used to rewrite URLS on the fly. Signs of it failing to work may be seen if the administrator clicks on a link and they get the well-known ‘404 page not found’ error. The entire permalink setup relies on mod_rewrite working correctly. If mod_rewrite fails, so will the export of the Wordpress posts and therefore the final set of web pages will not work correctly.

Mod_rewrite is very configurable and provides great functionality. One example is to enable URLS to be rewritten to send data to a PHP script that can use the input as part of the data to process, and the script then outputting the PHP. Also, mass migrations can use mod_ rewrite to deal with merging several domains’ worth of data into a single instance, using mod_rewrite depending on the entry URL used.

A more detailed breakdown and discussion of mod_rewrite can be found at the Apache.org website (http://bit.ly/lxf249mod). Depending on the configuration, mod_rewrite can be specified in several places as needed, even down to the individual HTML folder. The /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file is the master file that sets the baseline settings that all virtualhosts takes as its base settings.

If the feature is not enabled in the root of our config, none of the web hosts will work. Before changing any of these files, be sure to make a backup so that any changes that are made can be easily reversed.