Redirecting http to https on virtual server

Oobydoobywapwap · 01-25-2008, 04:36 PM

First off, I know absolutely nothing about coding so please be gentle and reply as if I'm an idiot!

I have a website on a Linux based virtual server so it uses both ports 80 and 443. I need visitors to go to the https version of the site for payment collection but as most users will not type in https or http they are immediately directed to http.

I need a user who types wwwdomainname.com or domainname.com into the address bar to find that https://thedomainname opens in their webbrowser.

various forums have advised that the .htaccess file should read:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

and this should work. My htaccess files does read this, but it doesn't work.

Can anyone help!! Please speak very s-l-o-w-l-y if you are kind enough to do so.

Thanks

Oob

michaelsanford · 01-25-2008, 05:02 PM

Hi,

I found this which might be useful http://www.whoopis.com/howtos/apache-rewrite.html

Also, you will have to ensure that you have configured Apache (in httpd.conf) to allow .htaccess to override settings.

Code:

<Directory /whatever_you_have>
    ...
    AllowOverride FileInfo Options
    ...
</Directory>

Also, make sure that you have uncommented (removed the # at the beginning of the line) the line that reads something like

Code:

LoadModule rewrite_module lib/httpd/modules/mod_rewrite.so

(wherever your particular module is stored. The important part is that there is no # at the beginning of the line.

Hope that helps! I'm no expert on rewrite rules (I do all my redirection in PHP) so this is about where my usefulness ends.