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Okay, I have this code:

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/borrowing/ill/request\.php$
RewriteRule ^.*$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

The way I would expect this to work is:

  1. A request for /borrowing/ill/request.php comes in on HTTP.
  2. The rule matches.
  3. The server redirects to HTTPS.
  4. The rule does not match, because HTTPS is now on.

The way it actually works is:

  1. A request for /borrowing/ill/request.php comes in on HTTP.
  2. The rule matches.
  3. The server redirects to HTTPS.
  4. The rule matches.
  5. The server redirects to HTTPS.
  6. The rule matches.
  7. The server redirects to HTTPS ...

And so on.

I know that the second condition (matching the file name) is working, because the redirect loop only hits that specific page. The question is, why isn't the switch to HTTPS causing the first condition to not match?

EDIT:

I put the exact same .htaccess rules into a test area on another server -- same file and path info. And they worked just fine. There's got to be something wrong with the server configuration elsewhere.

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  • 1
    If you enable verbose rewrite logging (via RewriteLog and RewriteLogLevel), do you see anything unexpected?
    – larsks
    Jun 23, 2011 at 17:47
  • I just tried this. Unfortunately, I do not have shell access to the server, and setting RewriteLog to a file in one of the folders I can see causes a 500 Internal Server Error, probably because the Apache process doesn't have write permissions. I can send it to /tmp fine, but can't retrieve the results. :-/ Maybe I should have asked this on Stackoverflow ... Jun 23, 2011 at 17:55
  • Maybe, but I suspect even on StackOverflow people would ask you to do some basic diagnostics first. You could presumably create a directory with permissions that would allow Apache to create a log file there.
    – larsks
    Jun 23, 2011 at 17:59
  • I sure wish I could -- my only access to the server is through a crappy web-based interface built into a half-baked CMS. I can create and upload directories/files, but it does not offer any way to control their perms. It sucks. Jun 23, 2011 at 18:04
  • @Will Where does this .htaccess located -- in website root folder ... or subfolder? Also -- can you upload any custom php script and execute it? You could try to use it to read the rewrite debug log and display it in browser...
    – LazyOne
    Jun 23, 2011 at 21:45

2 Answers 2

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It turns out that there is nothing wrong with the code above. The problem is that the server I was executing it on is talking to a load balancer which only communicates on port 80.

So, the HTTPS request comes in on port 443, hits the load balancer, which redirects it to port 80. Then the web server redirects it back to 443, which gets redirected to 80, to 443, to 80, to 443 ...

So, the fix is to report it to the person who maintains the load balancer and hope they can figure it out.

Thanks for the help anyway, you've all been very patient.

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  • Thanks for leaving the answer to your problem for other people. You can go ahead and accept your own answer if you like. Sep 28, 2012 at 7:06
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If the target domain is known, try this:

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/borrowing/ill/request\.php$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]
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  • Alas, no. I get the same behavior with this as with my initial stanza. Jun 23, 2011 at 19:41

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