Redirect non-www to www https Apache XAMPP

Question

Please forgive what may sound like a similar question to what has been asked, however, I am VERY new to XAMPP and Apache and I have tried all possible combinations of the Rewrite Rules mentioned in other threads, which I have placed in the httpd.conf , httpd-default.conf and also in .htaccess and I simply cannot get the rewrite rules to work.

I simply want to redirect example.com to www.example.com . Please note that my redirect from HTTP to HTTPS is working 100%, so if someone can please advise on exactly where I should place the rewrite rule, and which one to use, to force non-www to www, I would be most appreciative.

I have full access to the server so I can edit either .conf or .htaccess files. Also I have checked and the part in httpd.conf that allows overrides to read the .htaccess files is enabled. The .htaccess file is currently in the same folder where my website lies. Just to add, I don't get any error, it just says the page has timed out if I type in example.com , if I type www.example.com then the page loads as expected.

Answer 1

Try this in your .htaccess file:

Replace example.com with your url.

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

Answer 2

 The connection has timed out

This is a DNS or server config error. The request is not even reaching your server, or your server is not responding to the request. (So any attempt to implement a redirect will naturally fail.)

A quick check of the DNS for example.com and www.example.com shows they are pointing to different IP addresses (you have an A record configured for each). The example.com host is 1 digit different and would appear to be incorrect (the IP address does not respond to requests, hence the "time out").

Instead of having a separate A record for each hostname. If the www subdomain is supposed to point to the same site as the domain apex (ie. example.com ) then configure a CNAME record instead that points www.example.com to example.com (this is not a "redirect").

You then need to ensure that your server will accept requests to the non-www hostname. For example:

ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com

(It's possible you have the ServerName and ServerAlias reversed - which is "OK".)

And the SSL cert needs to cover the non-www hostname (it does).

You can then implement your non-www to www HTTP redirect as mentioned.