Pretty URL's for mediawiki

Another noob rewrite question, sorry in advance.

I'm new to DH and working with a DH subdomain before I switch my site over. The main hurdle remaining is getting pretty URL's for my mediawiki installation. I want to keep the index.php so it looks like this:

wiki/index.php/Main_Page
not
wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Here are my current rewrite rules, in .htaccess in my web root directory:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^wiki/(.+)$ /wiki/index.php?title=$1 [L,QSA]

The wiki is installed under wiki/. These rules don't seem to be having any effect at all -- I just get a page not found error when my wiki is set for pretty URL's. Is there something I need to do to activate the .htaccess file or is it read automatically?

I'm on pretzel, in case that matters. Any help appreciated.

Michelle

Hi,
The htaccess file is read automatically by Apache you simply need to put it into your 'root' where MW is installed. As for the domains issue I am not a rewrite guru but I suspect the issue may be because of the subdomain.

Can you clarity the URL you are using i.e subname.dreamhost.com?

or has your domain propogated?

Thanks! I haven't assigned my domain yet. My temp domain is:

http://www.sg1solutions.dreamhosters.com/

With the wiki installed in /wiki. It works fine with ugly URL's but not with the rewrite/pretty ones.

The thing is, once I propagate the domain, I want the url of the wiki to be:

http://wiki.mydomain.com/index.php/Main_Page

So I need to get the subdomain thing working anyway. I tried this once before when I attempted to switch hosting and it didn't work then either, so I want to be sure this time before I throw the switch.

I'm sure someone on DH has gotten this to work. I hope :)

Michelle

Okay, I figured it out. The wiki has to be stored in a directory named other than wiki, then directed to wiki by the rewrite rules. Then the wiki's LocalSettings.php have to be set accordingly... pretty much like what the wikimedia article says:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Rewrite_Rules#Using_a_rewrite_rule_in_a_.htaccess_file

But what I didn't realize is it won't work if the redirect is from and to the same subdirectory.