Redirect URL within Apache VirtualHost?

Question

I have a dedicated server with Apache, on which I've set up some VirtualHosts. I've set up one to handle the www domain as well as the non-www domain.

My VH .conf file for the www:

<VirtualHost *>
  DocumentRoot /var/www/site
  ServerName www.example.com
  <Directory "/var/www/site">
    allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

With this .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Is there a simple way to redirect the www to the non-www version? Currently I'm sending both versions to the same DocumentRoot and using .htaccess but I'm sure I must be able to do it in the VirtualHost file.

Answer 1

Turns out mod_rewrite rules are fine in the VirtualHosts file, apart from the RewriteBase rule. I ended up with this:

<VirtualHost *>
  ServerName www.example.com
  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com
  RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
</VirtualHost>

EDIT: on the advice of joschi in the comments, I'm now using this simplified version:

<VirtualHost *>
  ServerName www.example.com
  Redirect 301 / http://example.com/
</VirtualHost>

Answer 2

You can add ServerAlias example.com to the VirtualHost but the performance will differ from a redirect.

Edit

Since you want to redirect and you don't need advanced functionality, it seems like using Redirect should suffice for you. You would put the Redirect under a VirtualHost directive.

A client side solution would be to use a meta refresh tag.

• mod_alias documentation
• meta refresh

Answer 3

well, you could create one virtual host for the SERVERNAME www.example.com and have it redirect to another virtual host with the servername example.com