Avoiding recursion forcing http to https

Redirect http to https in .htaccess on Rackspace

[mhernandez]

Hi, here is my first post and new to the .htaccess world so bear with my noobiness.

I've spent 4 hours looking for this and I keep getting recursion.

Everywhere the simplest solution to force a folder to be https is:

RewriteCond %{https} =off
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/folder/$1 [R=301,L] 

I installed the .htaccess inside the folder I want to force https and I don't know why but I keep getting and error saying that there were too many redirects trying to access the page.

What can I be missing?

Thanks for the help.

[mhernandez]

It seems that the condition to determine if the request is HTTPS is not working so that is why it keeps looping.

I also tried:

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443

instead of,

RewriteCond %{https} =off

And the problem persists. The redirection to https occurs but becomes recursive.

Why is that RewriteCond not working? any ideas?

[mhernandez]

Still not working.. now in the wee hours and bugged eyed..

Similar problem on thread [webmasterworld.com...] with infinite looping not sure if it got resolved for the original poster bu not for me..

What could be happening?

[mhernandez]

Fixed oh yeah!

I was right. My server (Rackspace.com) was not recognizing RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443 because it uses a different system.

From their wiki -> [cloudsites.rackspacecloud.com...]

Answer:

#Force SSL on a specific directory
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://(YOURDOMAIN)/DIRNAMEHERE/ [R,L]

Why in the world they use %{ENV:HTTPS} ?

[jdMorgan]

It sounds like they're paranoid about exposing the standard cgi variable names for some reason...

If you want search engines to list only https URLs, then be sure to use [R=301] as you did in your initial attempts -- The Rackspace code will do a 302 by default, and search engines won't update your URLs to https as a result of that.

They appear to be dropping the requested URL-path as well, since there is no "$1" back-reference in their substitution URL.

Also, "RewriteBase /" is the default, and not needed unless you have previously set it to some other path.

Jim

[mhernandez]

Thanks Jim,

I added [R=301] and the "$1" I added last night for it to work.

BTW: I am impressed with your dedication to this forum!
You "joined" it back in 2002, that is 2,785 days ago and have 21,828 posts. That is almost 8 posts a day for the last 7 years!
Congratulations and thanks so much for your incredible dedication!