Can't get .htaccess mod_rewrite rules to work - 404 Not Found - apache

Question

I'm trying to get a simple .htaccess rewrite rule to work, but I can't seem to work it out.
My .htaccess looks like:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^api$ phpinfo.php
ErrorDocument 404 /error.php
php_flag display_errors on
php_flag display_startup_errors on
php_flag file_uploads on
php_value error_reporting 2047
php_value max_input_time 60
php_value post_max_size 8M
php_value upload_max_filesize 2M
When I access /api, I get a 404 error saying that /api can't be found.
My apache conf file looks like:
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
NameVirtualHost 10.104.17.3:443
<VirtualHost 10.104.17.3:443>
ServerName orddev.foo.com.au
DocumentRoot /var/www/orddev.foo.com.au___443/html
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
<Directory "/var/www/orddev.foo.com.au___443/html">
Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews IncludesNOEXEC
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_admin_value upload_tmp_dir "/var/www/orders.foo.com.au___443/resources/_tmp/upload/"
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^TRACE
RewriteRule .* - [F]
</IfModule>
ErrorLog logs/orddev.foo.com.au___443/ssl_error.log
CustomLog logs/orddev.foo.com.au___443/ssl_access.log combinedio
CustomLog logs/orddev.foo.com.au___443/ssl_request.log ssl
LogLevel warn
SSLEngine on
SSLProtocol all -SSLv2
SSLCipherSuite HIGH:MEDIUM:!aNULL:+SHA1:+MD5:!SSLv2
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/orddev.foo.com.au.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/orddev.foo.com.au.key
<Files ~ "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php|php3?)$">
SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</Files>
SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" \
nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
I know the .htaccess is being read as if I change the 404 document, I get an error about the 404 document not being setup properly.

Answer 1

I had a working .htaccess file that I switched over to another server. It was working fine before and stopped working after the switch. I solved the problem by configuring the httpd.conf file.
SSH onto your server and open the httpd.conf file for editing:
cd /etc/httpd/conf
sudo nano httpd.conf
find the "Directory" tag. Should look like this->
<Directory "/var/www/html">
Replace AllowOverride None with
AllowOverride All
Restart
sudo service httpd restart

Answer 2

It sounds like your apache isn't loading mod_rewrite.
Locate your httpd.conf and search for "rewrite_module".
If that line begins with a # (making it a comment), remove the # and restart apache.
In mine, the line is:
LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache2/mod_rewrite.so
...but YMMV.