routing problem in codeigniter - php

Question

I'm new to CodeIgniter and routing.
I have a Login controller whose index() loads up a view to enter a username/password. In the view, the form has action="login/authenticate". Login->authenticate() determines if the login is valid or not. If it's valid, redirect('lobby'), if not redirect('login')
routes.php:
$route['default_controller'] = "login"
config.php:
$config['base_url'] = "http://localhost/dts/";
$config['index_page'] = "index.php";
The problem is that when i go to http://localhost/dts/ , click login, I am correctly (?) redirected to http://localhost/dts/login/authenticate but the browser says Object not found!. But when I go to http://localhost/dts/index.php/ (with trailing slash), it works correctly (I get redirected to http://localhost/dts/index.php/login/authenticate, and am logged in)
I tried removing "index.php" by using a .htaccess:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|robots\.txt)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]
and it would no longer open even the http://localhost/dts/
I'm confused.. what's going on?

Answer 1

The issue is with the last line of your .htaccess file.
Since your application is in a subdirectory ("dts"), the forward slash in front of the "index.php" won't work. Try removing it so that your file looks like this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|robots\.txt)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]

Answer 2

Follow this article on the CodeIgniter wiki to properly setup your .htaccess as follows:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
#Removes access to the system folder by users.
#Additionally this will allow you to create a System.php controller,
#previously this would not have been possible.
#'system' can be replaced if you have renamed your system folder.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^system.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]
#When your application folder isn't in the system folder
#This snippet prevents user access to the application folder
#Submitted by: Fabdrol
#Rename 'application' to your applications folder name.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^application.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]
#Checks to see if the user is attempting to access a valid file,
#such as an image or css document, if this isn't true it sends the
#request to index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
# If we don't have mod_rewrite installed, all 404's
# can be sent to index.php, and everything works as normal.
# Submitted by: ElliotHaughin
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
</IfModule>

Answer 3

Did you change this in your config:
$config['index_page'] = "index.php";
To this:
$config['index_page'] = "";
Also, read this post by Jamie Rumbelow:
http://jamieonsoftware.com/blog/entry/the-best-codeigniter-.htaccess
Thats the .htaccess I've always used and it works great for me.