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