Redirect request with POST data using .htaccess

By default, if you want to redirect request with POST data, browser redirects it via GET with 302 redirect. This also drops all the POST data associated with the request. Browser does this as a precaution to prevent any unintentional re-submitting of POST transaction.

But what if you want to redirect anyway POST request with it’s data? In HTTP 1.1, there is a status code for this. Status code 307 indicates that the request should be repeated with the same HTTP method and data. So your POST request will be repeated along with it’s data if you use this status code.

From https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html,
If the 307 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.

I did this in one of the website to redirect HTTP request to HTTPS for a specific page.

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RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !443
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} string_to_match_in_url
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [L,R=307]

For this to work, you need to have mod_rewrite enabled on the server. The first RewriteCond checks if the request is NOT coming as HTTPS, otherwise it will go in endless loop. If yes, the second RewriteCond checks if the URL contains a string we are looking for. Then if that URL is being submitted as POST method. If everything matches, then we redirect the request using HTTPS secure protocol retaining the POST method and the associated data.

Magento: Sample apache virtualhost for your website

Sample apache virtualhost to point to your magento directory and run your local website with specified URL.

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<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host.example.com
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/magento/"
    ServerName loca.lho.st
    ServerAlias loca.lho.st
    ErrorLog "logs/error_log"
    CustomLog "logs/access_log" common
</VirtualHost>

Add entry to /etc/hosts too:

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127.0.0.1    loca.lho.st

Restart apache (service httpd restart OR service apache2 restart) and point your browser location to:

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http://loca.lho.st

and you will see the website running from your /var/www/magento directory.