How to make mydomain.com go to http://www.mydomain.com instead of http://mydomain.com

I really need to figure out how i can get my domain (http://www.glacialgaming.com) to redirect people to http://www.glacialgaming.com instead of http://glacialgaming.com when they type just "Glacialgaming.com" in there web browser.

I am hosting my website on a VPS and i am using Name.com DNS record management to forward the domain to my virtual private servers IP (I'm using WAMP to host the site)

Here is the records i have on Name.com

A *.glacialgaming.com xxx.xxx.62.38 (delete) 300 2011-03-15 14:15:32
A glacialgaming.com xxx.xxx.62.38 (delete) 300 2011-03-15 14:11:02
A www.glacialgaming.com xxx.xxx.62.38 (delete) 300 2011-03-15 14:11:05

I really need it so that if someone types glacialgaming.com in there browser to redirect them to http://www.glacialgaming.com instead of http://glacialgaming.com

I hope someone can help me! Thanks

 

Add this to your .htaccess
or create .htaccess with this.

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^glacialgaming.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.glacialgaming.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Code (markup):

 

I get an "Internal server error" if i create a new .htaccess with that text in it and place it in the WWW folder, I am using WAMP if that has anything to do with why it's giving me an internal server error..

 

Did your log say "RewriteteEngine isn't a command"?
If so seems like you don't have mod_rewrite installed and loaded.

 

Does a Windows server support .htaccess files? From what I recall, they did not, have not looked at a Windows server in years though.

Chris

 

Very informative post. Thanks for taking the time to share your view with us.

 

I doubt they do support .htaccess files, and i don't know what log you are talking about, I am using WAMP and Name.com DNS forwarding to forward the domain to my VPS IP.

 

It could be a matter of rewrite rule coding issue as well.
One of the value might not be the right value to use for WAMP.

I can't say for sure with WAMP now because I have experienced with Windows Server only twice long before.
.htaccess seems to work after installation of additional modules on WAMP and renaming.
However, I can't say for sure it'll work on your server or what modules you may need.

Old topics I can find are:

(need rewrite_module) http://www.icyphoenix.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=4935

(htaccess and mod_rewrite in WAMP) http://www.phpmagicbook.com/allow-htaccess-and-mod-rewrite-in-wamp/

(need auth_basic_module) http://terriswallow.com/weblog/2009/htaccess-password-protection-on-wamp-using-htpasswd/

And something about tweaking a httpd config file > "AccessFileName .htaccess" to "AccessFileName htaccess.txt" and having htaccess.txt instead.
Closet I can find is http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4321990/htaccess-not-working-on-window-wamp

 

Thanks for all the help, I'm going to check it out

Nice to see someone helping out