# Force app to use www only

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/force-app-to-use-www-only/178647>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 8, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/force-app-to-use-www-only/178647 "2009-11-08T23:19:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adammontgomery)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/force-app-to-use-www-only/178647/1 "2009-11-08T23:19:33Z")

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Hi everyone,

I want to go live with my application. But something is wrong with my  
site when using [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com) or [domain.com](http://domain.com). It seems that it use  
different instances of the app and create different sessions.

How can I configure my app to redirect to [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com) when someone  
calls [domain.com](http://domain.com)?

Thanks in advance

Adam

---

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**Author:** ![adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adammontgomery)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/force-app-to-use-www-only/178647/2 "2009-11-09T03:32:26Z")

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Personally, I redirect [www.example.com](http://www.example.com) to [example.com](http://example.com) ([example.com](http://example.com) is  
already a web site, no need for redundancy and it makes hard then for  
people  
to assimilate [blog.example.com](http://blog.example.com) (so, a blog is not a web site then?) or  
[newyork.example.com](http://newyork.example.com) (where’s www?) but I digress). I redirect at the  
Apache  
level doing:

\<VirtualHost \*:80\>  
ServerName [www.example.com](http://www.example.com)  
ServerAlias [example.org](http://example.org) [www.example.org](http://www.example.org)  
Redirect / [http://example.com/](http://example.com/)

The trailing slash in “Redirect / [http://example.com/](http://example.com/)” is important 😉

On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 23:19, Adam M.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote:

> Thanks in advance
> 
> ## Adam
> 
> Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).
> 
> >

–  
J. Pablo Fernández [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ([http://pupeno.com](http://pupeno.com))

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adammontgomery)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/force-app-to-use-www-only/178647/3 "2009-11-09T06:39:38Z")

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Adam M. wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I want to go live with my application. But something is wrong with my  
> site when using [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com) or [domain.com](http://domain.com). It seems that it use  
> different instances of the app and create different sessions.
> 
> How can I configure my app to redirect to [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com) when someone  
> calls [domain.com](http://domain.com)?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Adam

Hi,  
In .htaccess you specify the rewrite url rule to redirect  
[domain.com](http://domain.com) to [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com)  
Place below code in .htaccess

```
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www
   RewriteRule (.*) http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [L,R=301]

```

Thanks,  
Priyanka P.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@adammontgomery](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adammontgomery)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 12:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/force-app-to-use-www-only/178647/4 "2009-11-09T12:22:56Z")

</div>

Priyanka P. wrote:

> Adam M. wrote:
> 
> > Hi everyone,
> > 
> > I want to go live with my application. But something is wrong with my  
> > site when using [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com) or [domain.com](http://domain.com). It seems that it use  
> > different instances of the app and create different sessions.
> > 
> > How can I configure my app to redirect to [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com) when someone  
> > calls [domain.com](http://domain.com)?
> > 
> > Thanks in advance
> > 
> > Adam
> 
> Hi,  
> In .htaccess you specify the rewrite url rule to redirect  
> [domain.com](http://domain.com) to [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com)  
> Place below code in .htaccess
> 
> ```
> RewriteEngine On
> RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www
> RewriteRule (.*) http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [L,R=301]
> 
> ```
> 
> Thanks,  
> Priyanka P.

Thanks, I realized it with a .htaccess. The vhost configuration sent me  
in a loop.

Cheers