Mod rewrite without .htaccess - php

Question

Let's suppose I have a website named
foo.com
I can access foo.com and it runs the index.php found in the root folder. My question is: how should I edit the vhost file to enable rewrite mod without enabling htaccess?
My goal is to be able to write
http://foo.com/bar/loremipsum/dolor
into my browser address bar and to run index.php regardless of the number of / characters in the url. My index.php would handle the parameters separated by /
How can I achieve this?
EDIT:
vhost file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName myproject.com
ServerAlias www.myproject.com
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
DocumentRoot /opt/apps/myproject
<Directory /opt/apps/myproject>
# disable htaccess
AllowOverride None
# route everything to index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^ /index.php [L]
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
EDIT: The problem, as the accepted answer suggests is that this host did not contain the line which turns the rewrite engine on. This line is present in the answer. Which solves the problem.

Answer 1

To disallow the use of htaccess, you need this directive in a <Directory> container for your document root, then you can just place mod_rewrite rules in the same container:
<Directory "/var/www/htdocs/">
# disable htaccess
AllowOverride None
# route everything to index.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^ /index.php [L]
</Directory>
assuming that "/var/www/htdocs" is you document root.
To ensure mod_rewrite is loaded, check the httpd.conf file for a LoadModule line that contains mod_rewrite, and make sure it's uncommented. You'll need to restart your server anytime you make changes to the vhost config.
Short explanation:
The lines:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
are conditions to check that the request is not an existing file (-f) or an existing directory (-d). These conditions serve 2 main purposes:
It prevents the rewrite engine from looping, so that index.php won't also get rewritten. Since index.php is an existing file, the conditions stop the rewrite engine.
It allows resources and assets like images or scripts from being rewritten.
If you want everything routed to index.php no matter what (including images or anything else), then you can change the 2 conditions to simply:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index.php
so that everything gets rewritten except index.php.