How to remove index.php from URLs

Abdul

Hi Mad, thanks for creating Automad. I really like it. I have setup a website with Automad. However, I can't remove index.php from the URLs. For example: www.example.com/index.php/article. I am running the site on LiteSpeed server. I have tried to remove it using .htaccess method but it does not work. The site is fine when running locally on MAMP. Can you please help me? thanks! 😃

mad

Abdul Hi, happy to hear you like it. As far as I know LiteSpeed is an alternative to Apache and doesn’t support .htaccess files at all. But I’m sure it supports a way of rewriting URLs. But maybe you know better how to do that. Basically you can pass a requested URL with the query string. There is an example in the docs for configuring Nginx servers. Maybe that helps to define a rewrite rule. So the best would be to rewrite a request as follows:

domain.com/page > domain.com/index.php?/page

If that is working fine, you can enable rewriting for your site in the config/config.json file by adding the following line:

"AM_INDEX": ""

Hope that helps a bit.

SHPD17

Hello,
recently I have discovered Automad CMS. Aftern installation I noticed /index.php in URL. I would like to remove it. Instructions in two posts did not work for me. Are there any other solutions (via .htaccess file)?

Automad Version:
1.5.4

Operating System:
Linux / 3.10.0-962.3.2.lve1.5.36.el7.x86_64

Server Software:
LiteSpeed

PHP:
7.4.11 / litespeed

mad

SHPD17 Hi there. For now the cms is tested regularly on multiple Apache and Nginx servers. While it works on LiteSpeed, the URL rewriting has to be set up manually. There are multiple options for that. I think the safest is to configure your server to define PATH_INFO and define a rewrite rule to remove index.php from the request. After doing so you can set AM_INDEX to an empty string in config.json.

Alternatively you can also rewrite the URL by prepending the requested page to the query string to look as follows:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [QSA,L]

In LiteSpeed that rule should look similar. And again then set AM_INDEX to an empty string in config.json.

SHPD17

mad I think the safest is to configure your server to define PATH_INFO and define a rewrite rule to remove index.php from the request.

Thank you for your response.
Can you, please, tell me how to do that (where is this PATH stored)?

Adding RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [QSA,L] to .htaccess file and "AM_INDEX": "" to config/config.json did not remove index.php from URL.

abc

mad Hey, I am trying to remove the index.php from URLs like this, but get a Page not found error. I make the changes to the .htaccess and config.json in the config directory.

Automad is installed in a sub-directory of the server, so the startpage is www.site.com/cms/index.php right now. Could this be the problem?

Thanks a lot!

mad

SHPD17 Hi, the example is working for Apache servers. But you’re using LiteSpeed. Is there any specific reason for that?

mad

abc Hi, it should be fine to have it installed in a subdirectory and it should work out of the box without touching the included .htaccess. The rewrite rules resolve to the correct subdirectory automatically. Note that you need the mod_rewrite module to make pretty URLs work on Apache. Changing the .htaccess will break things.

abc

mad Okay, so everything works fine. I've also moved it to the root directory. I just want the index.php to not be shown in the URL. It's strange, in an older Automad installation it isn't there at all…

abc

So the basic problem is when going to my website I'll get www.site.com and my Automad startpage is displayed. Clicking then on a link to a page I'll get www.site.com/blog which doesn't work, but www.site.com/index.php/blog does work…

mad

abc I understand the issue. Please verify all of the following points:

You're running an Apache server
Your Apache supports .htaccess files
You have the original unmodified version of the .htaccess file
The mod_rewrite module is enabled as noted in the system requirements

abc

mad Thanks! Did everything as you described but still the index.php is part of the URL 😔

mad

abc Did you change anything in the configuration file? Can you check if the .htaccess file has the correct file name? Are you sure you’re running an Apache server?

abc

mad Yes, all of it. Actually the index.php was also shown always when testing on localhost. Anything else I could try?

mad

abc The index.php appears in the URL only if one of the following conditions are true:

There is no file called .htaccess in the base directory next to the index.php
The webserver is not Apache
The AM_INDEX settings is manually overridden in the config/config.php

If all these conditions are false, the index.php disappears. This behavior hasn’t been changed in the last six years.

I hope that helps you a bit to find out what’s causing the issue here. Also make sure that you have cleared the cache after changing anything.

abc

mad Thanks for this, there could be the problem. Server is Apache, and nothing was changed in the config.php. But in my Automad direction the .htaccess is in the config folder while index.php is in the root directory. When moving the .htaccess to the root direction I get a 403 Forbidden on my website.

mad

abc That one is of course not the right one. Leave that one in place and please install the CMS properly as described in one of the guides.
When you follow the installation guide you will have the correct .htaccess in the base directory. Never move those files! Note that the files are hidden on Linux and macOS.

abc

mad Thanks! Finally solved it!

metallissimus

mad The hint at the hidden files was really important for me. I installed Automad manually but didn't realize I am not copying all the files to the server after unpacking the archive locally.
Maybe you could add this information here https://automad.org/getting-started#manual-installation ? I know it says to extract the files within the corresponding directory, but I guess many novice users like me might not take that literally (in fact I don't even know if I can unzip something directly on the server).

john

Just to add my perspective...

This one problem of needing to know how (for this one, solitary problem) to do complicated things like "configure your server" (which I deliberately have the ambition to never have the ambition to learn - as that militates against the time-minimalist / unnecessary-mental-clutter-minimalist philosophy that has driven me towards this CMS), and to have to play around with configuration files and add lines of code in .htaccess that may or may not work, is what keeps me on version 1.9.1 and ensuring that I will never update any of my sites beyond that version and that when I want to create a new website that uses Automad, I simply copy all my old 1.9.1 installation files to the root folder of the new site and instruct anyone that works with me never to update.

This is actually a real shame, as - were it not for having to accept this weird condition of having a totally unwanted .../index.php/... within every URL - this CMS would be perfectly user-friendly and accessible to any business owner that wants a fast-loading, easy to navigate, relatively un-hackable site that doesn't break every few months (like Wordpress is, and does).

mad

john Hi John, I totally agree with you on the minimalist approach and the need of simplicity here. However, the latest version still has that exact same approach and the entire setup is basically identical. How URLs are resolved hasn't changed at all and probably won't change in the future. So it should be ok to upgrade.

However, whenever someone wants to leave the standard path of doing things such as using Apache or Nginx and building their own solution instead such as a minimal LiteSpeed server, it can be expected to be able to configure some files correctly and it can be assumed that the person knows what he or she is doing. Note that LiteSpeed is not officially supported.

And in the other cases here, the installation was in some way customized and not according to the documentation. Form the perspective of a developer, it is just not possible to cover all scenarios where people don't follow the guides.

Again, if someone wants to have a smooth and easy setup process without configuring anything, just go for the recommended setup, use Apache and everything is good.

🙂