forcing Codeigniter HMVC to use SSL - apache

Question

I have a website build with Codeigniter HMVC. On my local machine using Wamp it runs like it should. I want to upload it to my webserver that has an SSL certificate.
No matter what i try, i cant get the website to run on my webserver. I have tried following this :
How to force ssl in codeigniter?
But none of the given solutions work in my situation.
my .htaccess file looks like this :
Options +FollowSymLinks
Options -Indexes
DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|robots\.txt)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L,QSA]
in config.php of codeigniter i have :
$config['base_url'] = 'https://www.example.com/';
my webserver is an ubuntu 16 machine with apache, using an letsencrypt certificate. mod rewrite is enabled, but besides that is a standard configuration.
I have tried redirecting with hooks as mentioned in the link above, but to no avail. I have also tried various .htaccess file configuration but also no result there.
Is there anyone who has this running on their server?
regards,
sander

Answer 1

Because you say,
my webserver is an ubuntu 16 machine
I assume you are not using a shared server from a hosting provider and so you have complete access to Apache's configuration files. If that is true then you should not use .htaccess files. Read THIS and THIS to learn why.
I also assume you have a set of Apache "sites-available" files that define <VirtualHost> configs. It is inside those <VirtualHost> blocks where you should be placing the code you currently have in .htaccess.
To redirect all http requests to https try this as the contents of the "default" site in a "sites-available" configuration file e.g. "000-default.conf"
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.example.com
ServerAlias example.com
RedirectMatch 301 (.*) https://www.example.com$1
</VirtualHost>
What this will do is take any http request and immediately redirect to the https: URL. If you are using some other port besides the typical :80, adjust accordingly.
As mentioned, you can do the rewriting in a VirtualHost. Here's an example for the https: config file (maybe named along the lines of "020-example-443.conf")
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName www.example.com
ServerAlias example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/whatever
ServerAdmin web-boss#example.com
<Directory /var/www/whatever>
DirectoryIndex index.php
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [PT]
</Directory>
# SSL Engine Switch:
# Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host.
SSLEngine on
# Certificates delivered by certbot - your's maybe elsewhere
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/yoursite/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/yoursite/privkey.pem
#SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +StrictRequire
<FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</FilesMatch>
<Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
With these in place, you won't have to do anything special in CodeIgniter except, as you already do, use the following
$config['base_url'] = 'https://www.example.com/';

Answer 2

You must add after RewriteEngine on
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</IfModule>