320
votes

I have the following htaccess code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond !{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

</IfModule>

I want my site to be redirected to https://www. with HTTPS, and enforcing the www. subdomain, but when I access http://www. (without HTTPS), it does not redirect me to https://www with HTTPS.

14
Should be RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =off - Michael Berkowski
If I do that it redirects to h t t p s : / / w w w.w w w. - bigben
Dear @bigben you have accepted a wrong answer here! you can find out why its wrong in my answer. - Amir Fo
Also see this "Enforce https and www in one single 301 redirect" helponnet.com/2021/03/23/… - Amit Verma

14 Answers

652
votes

To first force HTTPS, you must check the correct environment variable %{HTTPS} off, but your rule above then prepends the www. Since you have a second rule to enforce www., don't use it in the first rule.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
# First rewrite to HTTPS:
# Don't put www. here. If it is already there it will be included, if not
# the subsequent rule will catch it.
RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
# Now, rewrite any request to the wrong domain to use www.
# [NC] is a case-insensitive match
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule .* https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

About proxying

When behind some forms of proxying, whereby the client is connecting via HTTPS to a proxy, load balancer, Passenger application, etc., the %{HTTPS} variable may never be on and cause a rewrite loop. This is because your application is actually receiving plain HTTP traffic even though the client and the proxy/load balancer are using HTTPS. In these cases, check the X-Forwarded-Proto header instead of the %{HTTPS} variable. This answer shows the appropriate process

154
votes

Michals answer worked for me, albeit with one small modification:

Problem:

when you have a single site security certificate, a browser that tries to access your page without https:// www. (or whichever domain your certificate covers) will display an ugly red warning screen before it even gets to receive the redirect to the safe and correct https page.

Solution

First use the redirect to the www (or whichever domain is covered by your certificate) and only then do the https redirect. This will ensure that your users are not confronted with any error because your browser sees a certificate that doesn't cover the current url.

#First rewrite any request to the wrong domain to use the correct one (here www.)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

#Now, rewrite to HTTPS:
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
101
votes

If you are using CloudFlare or a similar CDN you will get an infinite loop error with the %{HTTPS} solutions provided here. If you're a CloudFlare user you'll need to use this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} =http
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
61
votes

BAD SOLUTION AND WHY!

Don't ever use the solution below because when you are using their code that is something like:

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule .* https://www.example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

The browser goes to:

http://example.com

Then redirects to:

https://example.com

Then redirects to:

https://www.example.com

This is too much request to the server.

Most of the answers even accepted one has this problem.


BEST SOLUTION AND THE ANSWER

This code has an [OR] condition to prevent dual changes at url!

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
38
votes

This is the best way I found for Proxy and not proxy users

RewriteEngine On

### START WWW & HTTPS

# ensure www.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

# ensure https
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

### END WWW & HTTPS
28
votes

There are a lot of solutions out there. Here is a link to the apache wiki which deals with this issue directly.

http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/RewriteHTTPToHTTPS

RewriteEngine On
# This will enable the Rewrite capabilities

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
# This checks to make sure the connection is not already HTTPS

RewriteRule ^/?(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]
# This rule will redirect users from their original location, to the same location but using HTTPS.
# i.e.  http://www.example.com/foo/ to https://www.example.com/foo/
# The leading slash is made optional so that this will work either in httpd.conf
# or .htaccess context
12
votes

To redirect http:// or https:// to https://www you can use the following rule on all versions of apache :

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^ https://www.example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [NE,L,R]

Apache 2.4

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_SCHEME} http [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^ https://www.example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [NE,L,R]

Note that The %{REQUEST_SCHEME} variable is available for use since apache 2.4 .

8
votes

If you are on CloudFlare, make sure you use something like this.

# BEGIN SSL Redirect
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} =http
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</IfModule>
# END SSL Redirect

This will save you from the redirect loop and will redirect your site to SSL safely.

P.S. It is a good idea to if check the mod_rewrite.c!

4
votes
RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R]
2
votes
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

Notes: Make sure you have done the following steps

  1. sudo a2enmod rewrite
  2. sudo service apache2 restart
  3. Add Following in your vhost file, located at /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
<Directory /var/www/html>
  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
  AllowOverride All
  Order allow,deny
  allow from all
  Require all granted
</Directory>

Now your .htaccess will work and your site will redirect to http:// to https://www

1
votes

Similar to Amir Forsati's solution htaccess redirect to https://www but for variable domain name, I suggest:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%2%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
0
votes

Set in your .htaccess file

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
0
votes

I used the below code from this website, it works great https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-redirect-http-to-https-using-htaccess/

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R,L]

Hope it helps

-1
votes

I try first answer and it doesnt work... This work:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^.*$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress