Getting rid of index.php in codeigniter with Vhost - .htaccess

Question

I've tried every possible htaccess snippet I could find about this but none will work. My codeigniter projects is found on ci.mydomain.com and I've configured the virtualhost this way
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName ci.mydomain.com
ServerAlias ci.mydomain.com
ServerAdmin x#gmail.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/codeigniter
</VirtualHost>
I've also set
$config['index_page'] = '';
I just get 404. What's wrong?
I'm using the latest version 2.1.3
Update
<VirtualHost *:80>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|robots\.txt)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [PT]
ServerName ci.domain.com
ServerAlias ci.domain.com
ServerAdmin d#d.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/codeigniter
</VirtualHost>
I tried this and it worked for me. Although I would rather use a .htaccess file.
Edit: Guys, the reason I mentioned that I use virtual host is that i suspect that is what causes the problem. But maybe I'm wrong.

Answer 1

The actual workhorse for this is a module named mod_rewrite, it allows you to set up rewrite rules to redirect urls to index.php for processing.
See this article for some more in depth details on how to go about this
Update:
It looks like the rewrite conditions you're using are sort of following the old rules.
The two things I think you're missing (one of which isn't relevant, but helpfull) are:
RewriteBase - I have found specifying a rewrite base goes a long way to helping your rules work better. Technically I think it should work without but I've encountered nothing but problems without it.
RewriteCond Statements for Excluding actual files - Right now your conditions will mask a lot of real files, which probably isn't what you want.
So how do we fix this?
RewriteBase /
This will set the root of your rewrite engine to start after the .com/ this simplifies things because you wont need to deal with the leading /.
As a result you'll need to change your main rewrite rule to this:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]
This will redirect .com/anything/you/type to .com/index.php/anything/you/type and the php script can pick that up automatically to pass to the router.
This relys on the condition however because otherwise you'd end up in a loop, so above this line you need these conditions to prevent actual files/folders from being hidden:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
With this !-f means "Not -f" where -f means "Is A File", the same for -d meaning "Is a Directory" so basically you're saying match this rule only if the %{REQUEST_FILENAME} is not a file and is not a directory.
Then any url that points to an actual file will resolve just fine! (Including index.php).
So with the following lines in your .htaccess you should get proper rewriting:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]
You should be good to go provided you have mod_rewrite enabled in your apache configuration.
If you're using Apache2 on Ubuntu, the command(s) to enable this is trivial:
a2enmod rewrite
service apache2 reload
It's important the module is actually enabled of all your Rewrite* rules in your apache will not execute.
If that still isn't working you need to go check the apache main configuration to see if there's a subset of commands allowed in the .htaccess files, usually an install is set to All so that anything can be specified there, but often it's locked down to prevent security overlap between customers. You mentioned you're using a VPS so you probably wont have to do this step, but I thought I would mention it for the sake of others.
The option you'd be looking for looks like this:
AllowOverride All
There is one last thing that's mainly a saftey net:
Apache offers a way to gaurd clauses against modules existing
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
~~ Put Rewrite* Rules here ~~
</IfModule>
Update 2
Ok I just noticed the Virtual host. I think the problem is you're putting the Rewrite conditions in your <VirtualHost > block, and they need to exist in the <Directory> block for the folder your files are in.
You can do this by removing all Rewrite* rules from your conf and either adding this to your .conf file:
<Directory /var/www/codeigniter>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]
</Directory>
Or adding a .htaccess file in /var/www/codeigniter with this inside of it:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]
These rules apply to the directory, not the VHost declaration, and the .htaccess is a shortcut to the <Directory> block basically.
Useful Links:
Apache mod_rewrite documentation