Redirect HTTPS to HTTP except for specific URL

Question

We'd like to redirect all HTTPS traffic to HTTP except for a specific URL which is /user/login

So far we've got:

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^user/login(.*)$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R]

But it's causing a redirect loop, when it redirects back to HTTP

Answer 1

I believe this should do the trick:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

# Turn SSL on for /user/login
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/user/login
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

# Turn SSL off everything but /user/login
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/user/login
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

The above will do the following:

1. User types: https://yourdomain.com/user/login - no redirect
2. User types: http://yourdomain.com/user/login -> redirect to: https://yourdomain.com/user/login
3. User types: https://yourdomain.com/somerandomfile.php -> redirect to: http://yourdomain.com/somerandomfile.php
4. User types: http://yourdomain.com/somerandomfile.php - no redirect

Answer 2

Something like this should work:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/user/login
RewriteRule (.*) http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

But this doesn't make much sense for me. It would be better if you redirect only requests to /user/login via SSL and leave everything else as it is:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule /user/login(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/user/login$1 [R,L]

Answer 3

To solve the root of your problem you could put Nginx in front as a proxy to handle your https requests.

So with HTTP you would have: Varnish -> Apache

And with HTTPS you would have: Nginx -> Varnish -> Apache.

Nginx (being a reverse proxy first and web server second) also has caching as well, although I'm not sure how it compares with Varnish.

I've replaced Apache with Nginx and use just Nginx by itself on my servers. Nginx can handle a lot more requests than Apache, and it's extremely fast, especially with an Nginx+PHP-FPM combo. Admittedly I've never used Varnish though.. But Nginx is awesome.

Answer 4

You are looking for redirect when the URI does not match with /user/login/?? here is the answer.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7084048/apache-redirect-regexp-match-something-that-is-not-following-something/7084117#7084117