Updating httpd.conf not working for permalinks

Activate the mod_rewrite module with

sudo a2enmod rewrite

and restart the apache

sudo service apache2 restart

To use mod_rewrite from within .htaccess files (which is a very common use case), edit the default VirtualHost with

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Below “DocumentRoot /var/www/html” add the following lines:

<Directory “/var/www/html”>
AllowOverride All
</Directory>

Restart the server again:

sudo service apache2 restart

EDIT:

Found my htaccess file was missing. So followed the steps listed here :

https://wordpress.org/support/article/using-permalinks/#wheres-my-htaccess-file

• Created htaccess in wp root which, on my server, was /var/www/html.
• Added the required rewrite rules provided in the link above.
• Set chmod on htaccess to 775
• Set chown on htaccess to apache:apache
• Restarted httpd service

Postname permalink now works!