I run 8-10 EC2 based web servers, so my experience is many hours, but is limited to CentOS; specifically Amazon's distribution. I'm installing Apache using yum, so therefore getting Amazon's default compilation of Apache.

I want to implement canonical redirects from non-www (bare/root) domain to www.domain.com for SEO using mod_rewrite BUT MY .htaccess FILE IS CONSISTENTLY IGNORED.

My troubleshooting steps (outlined below) lead me to believe it's something specific to Amazon's build of Apache.

TEST CASE

1. Launch a EC2 Instance, e.g. Amazon Linux AMI 2013.03.1
2. SSH to the Server

3. Run the commands:

   • $ sudo yum install httpd
   • $ sudo apachectl start
   • $ sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
   • $ sudo apachectl restart
   • $ sudo vi /var/www/html/.htaccess

In httpd.conf I changed the following, in the DOCROOT section / scope:

AllowOverride All

In .htaccess, added:

(EDIT, I added RewriteEngine On later)

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

Permissions on .htaccess are correct, AFAI can tell:

$ ls -al /var/www/html/.htaccess -rwxrwxr-x 1 git apache 142 Jun 18 22:58 /var/www/html/.htaccess

Other info:

$ httpd -v
Server version: Apache/2.2.24 (Unix)
Server built:   May 20 2013 21:12:45

$ httpd -M
Loaded Modules:
 core_module (static)
     ...
 rewrite_module (shared)
     ...
 version_module (shared)
Syntax OK

EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

$ curl -I domain.com
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:36:22 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.24 (Amazon)
Location: http://www.domain.com/
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

ACTUAL BEHAVIOR

$ curl -I domain.com
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:34:10 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.24 (Amazon)
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

TROUBLESHOOTING STEPS

In .htaccess, added:

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

My server threw an error 500, so I knew the .htaccess file was processed.

As expected, it created an Error log entry: [Wed Jun 19 02:24:19 2013] [alert] [client XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] /var/www/html/.htaccess: Invalid command 'BLAH BLAH BLAH ERROR', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

Since I have root access on the server, I then tried moving my rewrite rule directly to the httpd.conf file. THIS WORKED. This tells us several important things are working.

$ curl -I domain.com
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:36:22 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.24 (Amazon)
Location: http://www.domain.com/
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

HOWEVER, it is bothering me that it didn't work in the .htaccess file. And I have other use cases where I need it to work in .htaccess (e.g. an EC2 instance with named virtual hosts).

Thank you in advance for your help.