How to set up a 301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS with Apache and Nginx

When should you use a 301 redirect?

• If there are several identical site versions using different subdomains or folders, for example, http://domain.site.com, http://site.com or httpS://domain.site.com, to redirect the visitors to the main website version.
• To ensure your visitors use the right URL once your website is rebranded (or any other reasons when the previous URL has been changed).
• While merging two websites so that links from all pages of the first redirect to a new one.

How to setup a 301 redirect with Apache web server?

To set up the redirect from HTTP to HTTPS, you need to use mod_rewrite:

LoadModule rewrite_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_rewrite.so

For the changes to take effect, we need to reload the Apache web server:

apache2ctl restart

Add to the .htaccess:

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

Or:

RewriteEngine On
Redirect 301 / http://sitename.com/

How to setup a 301 redirect with Nginx web server?

The best way is to configure redirects with separate vhost-s.

vhost is the virtual host for the domain. It starts with a section server { and can be used in the main configuration file nginx.conf or through including as an external file, for example: include sites-enabled/*.conf;

If you do not need to redirect to www or non-www:

server {
listen x.x.x.x:80;
server_name sitename.com;
server_name www.sitename.com;
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

If you need to redirect to www or non-www.

Redirecting to www.sitename.com:

server {
listen x.x.x.x:80;
server_name sitename.com;
server_name www.sitename.com;
return 301 https://www.sitename.com$request_uri;
}

Redirecting to non-www:

server {
listen x.x.x.x:80;
server_name sitename.com;
server_name www.sitename.com;
return 301 https://sitename.com$request_uri;
}

If you need to redirect https non-www to https: // www. :

server {
listen x.x.x.x:443 ssl http2;
server_name sitename.com;
ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.....;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key...;
return 301 https://www.sitename.com$request_uri;
}
server {
listen x.x.x.x:443 ssl http2;
server_name www.sitename.com;
ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.....;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key...;
root /path/to/docroot;
...
...
}

To implement a redirect within one vhost, when there is no possibility to use several (for example, a control panel on the server is used ):

server {
listen x.x.x.x:80;
listen x.x.x.x:443 ssl http2;
server_name www.domain.com;
ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.....;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key...;
root /path/to/docroot;

if ($scheme = http) {
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}
...
...
}