Remove index php add language code in the url

Question

I built international site and it adds language code to the end of the urls: www.site.com/index.php/en/ I enabled SEF urls and url rewriting in global configuration, I tried many .htaccess snippets to remove index.php but it keeps forwarding me to page not found, below is the snippet I used:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/index\.php/
RewriteRule ^index.php/(.*) /$1 [R,L]

Please advice me the right way to remove index.php and keep the language code.

Update

.htaccess code:

 <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>                                        
 RewriteEngine On                                                
                                                                 
 #Force www:                                                     
 RewriteEngine on                                                
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^ncci-server.com [NC]                  
 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.ncci-server.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]   
                                                                 
 #REWRITE RULES                                                  
 #---------------------                                          
                                                                 
 RewriteBase /MainSite/                                          
                                                                 
 #RULE JOOMLA! RULE 1 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php                                              
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /component/|(/[^.]*|\.(php|html?|feed|pdf|vcf|raw))$ [NC]  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f                                                   
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d                                                   
RewriteRule .* index.php [L]                                                          
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization},L]                       
                                                                                      
#remove index.php                                                                     
### Redirect index.php to Root                                                        
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^POST                                                     
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php\ HTTP/                            
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT}>s ^(443>(s)|[0-9]+>s)$                                     
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http%2://www.ncci-server.com/ [R=301,L]                      
                                                                                      
#RULE JOOMLA! RULE 2                                                                  
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} base64_encode[^(]*\([^)]*\) [OR]                          
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (>|%3C)([^s]*s)+cript.*(&lt;|%3E) [OR]                    
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]                        
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})                            
    <Files ^(.*)$>                                                                            
    ErrorDocument 403 "Forbidden"                                                     
    </Files>
# STARTS WITH WEB                                                                                                                                       
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^web(zip|emaile|enhancer|fetch|go.?is|auto|bandit|clip|copier|master|reaper|sauger|site.?quester|whack) [NC,OR]      
                                                                                                                                                        
# ANYWHERE IN UA -- GREEDY REGEX                                                                                                                        
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*(craftbot|download|extract|stripper|sucker|ninja|clshttp|webspider|leacher|collector|grabber|webpictures).*$ [NC] 
                                                                                                                                                        
# ISSUE 403 / SERVE ERRORDOCUMENT                                                                                                                       
    RewriteRule . - [F,L]                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                        
########## Begin - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits                                                                                      
## If you experience problems on your site block out the operations listed below                                                                        
## This attempts to block the most common type of exploit `attempts` to Joomla!                                                                         
#                                                                                                                                                       
# Block out any script trying to set a mosConfig value through the URL                                                                                  
    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} mosConfig_[a-zA-Z_]{1,21}(=|\%3D) [OR]                                                                                  
# Block out any script trying to base64_encode crap to send via URL                                                                                     
    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} base64_encode.*\(.*\) [OR]                                                                                              
# Block out any script that includes a <script> tag in URL                                                                                              
    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (\<|%3C).*script.*(\>|%3E) [NC,OR]                                                                                      
# Block out any script trying to set a PHP GLOBALS variable via URL                                                                                     
    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]                                                                                      
# Block out any script trying to modify a _REQUEST variable via URL                                                                                     
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})                                                                                              
# Send all blocked request to homepage with 403 Forbidden error!                                                                                        
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]                                                                                                                  
#                                                                                                                                                       
########## End - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                        
########## Begin - Common hacking tools and bandwidth hoggers block                                                                                     
## By SigSiu.net and @nikosdion.                                                                                                                        
# This line also disables Akeeba Remote Control 2.5 and earlier                                                                                         
    SetEnvIf user-agent "Indy Library" stayout=1                                                                                                        
# WARNING: Disabling wget will also block the most common method for                                                                                    
# running CRON jobs. Remove if you have issues with CRON jobs.                                                                                          
    SetEnvIf user-agent "Wget" stayout=1
</IfModule>

Answer 1

Enable URL Rewriting

What you have to do, is to enable URL rewriting. It can be done in the backend:

Global Configuration -> Site -> Use URL Rewriting (set to yes)

or directly in the configuration.php file of the Joomla instance:

public $sef_rewrite = '1'; //1 = enabled, 0 = disabled;

Note: When enabling the URL rewriting, an .htaccess file should exist in the root of the Joomla site.

RewriteBase in htaccess:

If your site is not in the root folder, then you will also have to uncomment the RewriteBase rule in the .htaccess file and add the path to the folder where your site resides, eg.:

RewriteBase /myjoomlafolder

Redirect index.php to home page (htaccess):

Finally, if you are also want to remove the index.php from the home page, therefore to remove the duplicate urls for the homepage, something like this should do the trick:

### Redirect index.php to Root
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^POST
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT}>s ^(443>(s)|[0-9]+>s)$
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http%2://mysite.com/ [R=301,L]

Answer 2

It should not be necessary to modify/add your .htaccess rules in order to remove index.php from your url, it usually works out of the box if you enable URL Rewriting in the Joomla Configuration, and rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess.

Although you seem to have found a solution, I'd like to add a clarification on the use of RewriteBase in the .htaccess file:

RewriteBase /JoomlaSubFolder

This line should be un-commented and edited if you have installed Joomla in a subfolder on your server (in this case, ROOT/JoomlaSubFolder). However, this is relative to your URL, so it is only correct if you access your site using http://example.com/JoomlaSubFolder (or http://localhost/JoomlaSubFolder).

On the other hand, if you have installed Joomla in the same subfolder, but use a unique URL to access the site (e.g. http://joomla.example.com, http://example2.com, or http://www.ncci-server.com/), you should leave it as it is in the default .htaccess file:

# RewriteBase /

or

RewriteBase /

This is often the case when using addon domains on Apache servers, as these are located within a subfolder of the main domain, but has a different domain assigned.

Answer 3

I'm using apache virtual hosts so the right way to use url rewriting:

• Enable Apache Mod_Rewrites (if not enabled): sudo a2enmod rewrite

• Edit apache site config file: sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

  <Directory /var/www/>
              Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
              AllowOverride All
              Order allow,deny
              allow from all
  </Directory>
  

• sudo service apache2 restart
• Enable URL Rewriting (Joomla Configuration)
• Rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess

Now URL Rewriting will work.