.htaccess Question

[marain]

I suppose technically this is more Apache than html, but Dynamic Drive has no Apache forum, and html seems a bit more descriptive than "other," so I hope y'all will indulge me:

My .htaccess file begins with the following:


ErrorDocument 404 /404.html
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^marainlaw\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.marainlaw.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R=301,L]

Might someone be able to indicate exactly what the "RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.marainlaw.com/$1 [R=301,L]" statement does, and what would be the effect of its removal?

A.

[molendijk]

See this (https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/ssl/forcing-https).
You could also use javascript to redirect the visitor to https:// by doing something like
/*HTTP to HTTPS redirect for a site having 'yoursite.com' as its domain name*/
/*Put this on all pages of yoursite:*/
var my_domain='yoursite.com'
if (location.protocol == 'http:' && document.URL.substring(document.URL.indexOf(my_domain), document.URL.length).substring(0, my_domain.length) == my_domain) {location.href = location.href.replace(/^http:/, 'https:')}

[marain]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.marainlaw.com/$1 [R=301,L] was in my .htaccess file. It was forcing all visits to http pages to instead seek an https page, including for subdomains. That is good--I wanted that. NOW, however, I have an additional subdomain that I want excluded from that force. Let's call it xyz subdomain. I am looking for an .htaccess modification that can keep the forced http ---> https for all domains and subdomains except for this xyz subdomain, which should remain http.

[molendijk]

Remove the RewriteRule from the .htaccess file , then put

<script>
var my_domain='marainlaw.com'
if (location.protocol == 'http:' && document.URL.substring(document.URL.indexOf(my_domain), document.URL.length).substring(0, my_domain.length) == my_domain) {location.href = location.href.replace(/^http:/, 'https:')}
</script>
in all pages where you want to redirect your visitors to https://. So you should not put the script in the pages of the xyz subdomain.

[marain]

Molendijk,

First of all, thank you!

Your facility with javascript is two or three orders of magnitude greater than mine. I vaguely follow what you suggest, and assume your solution will work. But (ungrateful wretch that I am), I was hoping for something (a line or two perhaps in .htaccess?) just a bit more elegant.

Regardless, you focused hard on my question, and deserve a thanks. Here it is!

Best,

A.

[molendijk]

Marain, thanks.
For now, I'm unsure about how to do it inside the .htaccess file, sorry. Perhaps someone else?
I have a site with a subdomain for one of my children who doesn't want an SSL certificate. So I put the required javascript lines inside my own pages only. It works.

[juliejohn]

According to new google algorithm rules you should redirect all links to https with a secure SSL certificate.