Q:

Why does my web site have to specify the .php extension in the URI

Was running a 12.04 ubuntu lamp setup.  Built a new one using 14.04 ubuntu.  These are both instances on AWS.  On the old site, a php script named "info.php" could be displayed with the URL "http://example.com/info" and would display the phpinfo() output.  On the new 14.04 server, with the lamp-server packages installed, if I do not specify the .php extension, I get a file not found (works fine with the .php extension added).  Why isn't the request_URI not being auto rewritten on the newer setup?
The php5 and apache2 conf options have changed as well.  Under 12.04 ubuntu the php5 is 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.14 and the 14.04 ubuntu setup is 5.5.9-1ubuntu4.5.
Searching about I see a lot of discussion about rewrite rules and such, but I'm confvinced I'm missing a basic configuration/setup problem here.  Can anyone help point out the stupidity of my ways here?
thanks,

A:

The difference between 12.04 and 14.04 is in the /etc/mime.types file. In 12.04 the related area is this:
application/x-httpd-php                         phtml pht php
application/x-httpd-php-source                  phps
application/x-httpd-php3                        php3
application/x-httpd-php3-preprocessed           php3p
application/x-httpd-php4                        php4
application/x-httpd-php5                        php5

In 14.04 the related area is this:
#application/x-httpd-php                        phtml pht php
#application/x-httpd-php-source                 phps
#application/x-httpd-php3                       php3
#application/x-httpd-php3-preprocessed          php3p
#application/x-httpd-php4                       php4
#application/x-httpd-php5                       php5

Notice the relevant lines are commented out in the 14.04 case.
Once I uncommented those lines I was able to have .php files load without specifying the .php file extension (after restarting apache, of course).
sudo service apache2 restart

