Redirect from http to https

Question

I have a Hudson/Jenkins installation which runs on port 443, so I can access it with https://ci.mydomain.com. I do not have a webserver running on port 80 like Apache Httpd, but I want if a user types http://ci.mydomain.com it should be redirected to https://...

I tried it with iptables:

/sbin/iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 443
/sbin/iptables-save
chkconfig --level 35 iptables on

But the browser tells me, that the connection failed. So I do not want to install Apache webserver, I only want to have a redirect from http://ci.mydomain.com to https://ci.mydomain.com.

Solution 1

iptables IS NOT what you want here -- You are sending a browser that is expecting to talk plain-old HTTP (just boring ordinary text) to a server that is talking HTTPS (encrypted, and VERY confusing for your browser).

You want a 300-series Redirect issued by your web server to send the client to the appropriate https:// URL. If you are running Apache you can combine this with the SSLRequireSSL directive (Manual Entry) to ensure that your clients cannot access resources that should be encrypted over unencrypted channels.

Solution 2

HTTP and HTTPS are different application level protocols, so you can't just redirect on a transport level. You should set up Apache or Nginx or something on port 80 to perform a proper HTTP redirect using a Location header.

Solution 3

Setup a relatively blank VirtualHost listening on 80, which does nothing but

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule (.*) https://foo.com$1

Solution 4

Going from http to https is more then just switching ports. These are two different protocols and your Hudson/Jenkins installation is looking for https and not http.

I don't know of a way to do what you want without installing something like Apache to listen on port 80.

Solution 5

You are probably at an impasse here as http & https are dissimilar enough where a simple port redirect is not going to work.

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Comments

[Tim]

Okay I have to install sth. like Apache. And then, what is the best way to redirect?