How to configure drupal with clean URLs

There is some confusion on drupal.org (and other sites) on how exactly to do that: multiple conflicting articles, incomplete instructions, etc. The way to do it is to basically include the correct set of httpd.conf directives for all three of the following directories (assuming the default/usual directories are used):

• /var/www 
• /var/www/html
• /var/www/html/sites/default

The httpd.conf sections for the first two directories normally already exist by default; the third one needs to be created. No .htaccess files need to be used; everything can be done in the httpd.conf file. Here is the relevant listing from my httpd.conf file that successfully configured Drupal with clean URLs for me:

#
# DocumentRoot: The directory out of which you will serve your
# documents. By default, all requests are taken from this directory, but
# symbolic links and aliases may be used to point to other locations.
#
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"

#
# Relax access to content within /var/www.
#
<Directory "/var/www">
    AllowOverride All
    # Allow open access:
    Require all granted
</Directory>

# Further relax access to the default document root:
<Directory "/var/www/html">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    #Options Includes ExecCGI FollowSymLinks MultiViews

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    #AllowOverride None
    AllowOverride All

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Require all granted

        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteBase /
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
        #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
        #RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

</Directory>

<Directory "/var/www/html/sites/default">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    #Options Includes ExecCGI FollowSymLinks MultiViews

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    #AllowOverride None
    AllowOverride All

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Require all granted

        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteBase /
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
        #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
        #RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

</Directory>