Forcing HTTPS over HTTP

Question

So I want to force the user to access the https version of my page rather than the http. And according to this post all I have to do is this:

RewriteEngine On 
R         


        

Answer 1

This is a not-so-good method of going about this, especially if you have access to httpd.conf. The better method is to create TWO virtual hosts. One for your standard port 80 stuff, which simply has an unconditional redirect to the SSL version, e.g. in pseudo-ish .conf talk:

   RedirectPermanent / https://example.com
   DocumentRoot /some/fake/path



   normal site stuff here...

This has the advantage of leaving the redirect viable even if a config messup disables .htaccess files, plus serving up bogus/non-existent content if SSL dies for whatever reason.