HTTP to HTTPS rewrite rule not working

Question

ubuntu 14.04

Apache/2.4.7

I am posting here conf file for my virtual host and default ssl host. not able to figure what am I doing wrong.

http://<website_url> shows the index of the folder. I want to redirect this to https.

https://<website_url> opens fine.

IMPORTANT: I have not enabled the default SSL site.

 cat default-ssl.conf|grep -v "#"

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
      <VirtualHost _default_:443>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        SSLEngine on
        SSLCertificateFile  /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

        <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </FilesMatch>
        <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
                SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </Directory>

        BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
                nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
                downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
        BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown

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

And here is mywebsite configuration file:

cat www.mywebsite.com.conf|grep -v "#"

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName www.mywebsite.com:443
    ServerAlias www.mywebsite.com
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /var/www/www.mywebsite.com/html

    Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains"
     <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
      RewriteEngine On
      RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
      RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}
    </IfModule>

SSLEngine on   
    SSLEngine on
        SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key

    <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
        SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
    </FilesMatch>
    <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
        SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
    </Directory>

    BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
        nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
        downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
    BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/ssl.error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/ssl.access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

If you want that http://www.mywebsite.com/ is always be sent over https you should use redirect because use mod_rewrite isn't the recommended behavior.

According to Redirect Request to SSL Apache wiki page:

When using SSL, you will frequently have at least two virtual hosts: one on port 80 to serve ordinary requests, and one on port 443 to serve SSL. If you wish to redirect users from the non-secure site to the SSL site, you can use an ordinary Redirect directive inside the non-secure VirtualHost

So, try to add this directive in your non-secure VirtualHost:

Redirect permanent / https://www.mywebsite.com/

If you want anyway use rewrite rule, you should add these lines in non-secure VirtualHost:

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.mywebsite.com/foo/ to https://www.mywebsite.com/foo/

as described in HTTP to HTTPS Apache wiki page.

---

Your configuration doen't work, because it is not defined a non-secure VirtualHost (usually on port 80) that handles http requests and redirect them to secure VirtualHost.

Try adding these lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName dev.dom1.com
   Redirect permanent / https://dev.dom1.com/
</VirtualHost>

In this case you don't need a DocumentRoot because this VirtualHost is redirecting everything.

Rewrite rule shown in your configuration file protect secure VirtualHost from being accessed via http protocol, for example http://www.mywebsite.com:443/ will be https://www.mywebsite.com:443/

You should also check that your site linking to the correct page (https) from within your HTML pages.

Answer 2

This is an old post, but in Ubuntu 14.04 the original rewrite works, you just have to change it to:

<Directory /var/www/>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}
</Directory>