Question

I’m hosting a domain with both addresses http://www.domain.com and domain.com through an “alias” directive specified in the VirtualHost config file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName domain.com
   ServerAlias www.domain.com
   DocumentRoot /var/www/domain.com/current/public/
   <Directory /var/www/domain.com/current/public/>
     AllowOverride all
     Options -MultiViews
     Order allow,deny
     Allow from all
   </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Now http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com go to the same content.
I need to redirect every request for http://www.domain.com to domain.com as well as http://www.domain.com/something to domain.com/something.

I’m just wondering on best practice for redirecting all traffic from http://www.domain.com to domain.com. Is should be done at Apache, Passenger or Rails level? and how? 301 redirect?

Any ideas appreciated.
Thank you.

EDIT:

The working configuration is now this one (with “Redirect permanent“):

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.domain.com
  Redirect permanent / http://domain.com/
</VirtualHost>


<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName domain.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/domain.com/current/public/
  <Directory /var/www/domain.com/current/public/>
    LimitRequestBody 4096000
    AllowOverride all
    Options -MultiViews
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

The very best way to solve this is by using Redirect directive placed in a virtual hosts.

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.example.com

  Redirect / http://example.com/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.com
</VirtualHost>

Refer here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/remapping.html#canonicalhost