Apache: prevent SSL forwarding of a specific URL

Question

My server (Apache 2x) is working correctly with SSL certificate but need to prevent that only a single URL accept normal connection (HTTP only).

The current structure is like this (it is messy due to tests already performed)

<VirtualHost *:80>
            ServerName domain.com
            ServerAlias www.domain.com

            #Redirect permanent / https://domain.com/

        <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
                    RewriteEngine on
                    RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
                    #RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =domain.com
                    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
                    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
                    RewriteCond $1 !^/complemento/url [NC]
                    RewriteRule (.*) http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
        </IfModule>
            Redirect permanent / https://domain.com/
</VirtualHost>

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost *:443>
            ServerAdmin [email protected]
            ServerName domain.com
            ServerAlias www.domain.com
            DocumentRoot /var/www/html

            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

            SSLEngine on

            SSLCertificateFile      /home/domain/domain.com.crt
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/domain.key
            SSLCertificateChainFile /home/domain-bundle.crt

            <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </FilesMatch>
            <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </Directory>

            <Directory /var/www/html>
                    Options FollowSymLinks
                    AllowOverride All
            </Directory>
    </VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

This way it doesn’t work. How to proceed?

Answer 1

Take this example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/complemento/url/?$
        RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</VirtualHost>

Where:

• http://domain/complement/url, will not be redirected to HTTPS
• http://domain/complement/url/, will not be redirected to HTTPS
• Any other URL will be redirected to HTTPS

No need to use the Redirect permanent / https://domain.com/

Answer 2

I solved the problem as follows:

• I removed the redirect from the default-ssl.conf (Apache)

• Because it’s a Cakephp system, I edited . htaccess into /app/webroot and inserted the redirect there, staying as below

  <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
      RewriteEngine On
  
      RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
      RewriteCond ${REQUEST_URI} ^/reports/producao_logs/add/[a-zA-Z0-9]+?$
      RewriteRule http://{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
  
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
      RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
  </IfModule>
  

I had to proceed this way because the previous solutions were redirecting to http://domain.com/app/webroot/address, and with that, he did not recognize the rule and ended up playing for HTTPS again (in addition to generating error in Cakephp itself).