http to https redirect in php

From the security point of view, it is very important for dynamic websites to contain 'https' rather than 'http'.

http stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.

It is a stateless protocol which is used to provide the ability to communicate between web browsers and servers.

In 'https' s stands for Secure Socket Layer or SSL in short.

It is an encryption based protocol which ensures privacy, authentication and data integrity in communication over the www.

We have 3 different ways to redirect a http page to https.

1. By using PHP code
2. By using HTML Meta tag
3. By using .htaccess file

1) HTTP to HTTPS by using PHP code:

We can redirect a http page to https with the help some php code. Here is a brief code for it.

<?php
function redirect_httpTo_https() {
$header=$_SERVER['HTTPS'];
$http_host=$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"];
$request_uri=$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
if($header!="on") {
$redirect_url= "https://".$http_host.$request_uri;
echo "Redirect to https";
header("Location:".$redirect_url);
}
}
redirect_httpTo_https(); // call function to redirect
?>

Output:

Related Article: A Guide to HTTP Status Code

2) http to https by using HTML Meta tag:

We can also use HTML meta tag to redirect a http page to https.

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0;url=https://www.nameOfYourDomain.com"/>

Put this line into head tag. As compared to other two ways it is less effective.

3) http to https by using .htaccess file:

We know that htaccess file is very useful for url redirect. We can also redirect http to https by using htaccess file.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

Write above code into your htaccess file to make your website secure.