.htaccess - Force rule from root .htaccess file despite each subdirectory having own file? - apache

Question

The Problem
I have a piece of code from another Q&A that is a generalized solution to forcing www in web addresses:
# Force www.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^[^.]+\.[^.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [L,R=301]
My understanding of the logic:
If the HTTP_HOST is defined solely as "(no period string).(no period string)", ie. example.com, then capture the remainder and rebuild the URL with www affixed to the head of the HTTP_POST and captured string.
I have placed this code in a .htaccess file in my web document root. Within that folder are a number of subdirectories which each contain their own .htaccess file to handle redirects and clean urls that are automatically managed by a CMS. All of the entries in these subdirectories tend to follow the following pattern:
RewriteRule ^$ /reason/displayers/generate_page.php?site_id=11111&page_id=222222
RewriteRule ^page$ /subdirectory/page/ [R=permanent]
RewriteRule ^page/$ /reason/displayers/generate_page.php?site_id=111111&page_id=333333
The first problem I have is that the RewriteRule in the solution only triggers for the root page of the website and not any subdirectory or pages:
http(s)://example.com ->http(s)://www.example.com (Good)
http(s)://example.com/subdirectory/ ->http(s)://example.com/subdirectory/ (Bad)
http(s)://example.com/subdirectory/page/ ->http(s)://example.com/subdirectory/page/ (Bad)
Looking at another Q&A, a user suggested adding RewriteOptions inherit to the subdirectory .htaccess. Doing that with my initial RewriteRule in a single test directory results in the following:
http(s)://example.com/subdirectory/page/ ->http(s)://example.com//reason/displayers/generate_page.php/events/?site_id=111111&page_id=333333
The page content does appear, but the URL is certainly less than desirable. The OP of that Q&A left a comment noting that they needed to use %{REQUEST_URI} rather than attempting to capture and reuse it. Using that for the RewriteRule, I get:
http(s)://example.com/subdirectory/page/ ->http(s)://www.example.com/subdirectory/page/?site_id=111111&page_id=333333
Close, but I certainly don't want the parameters to appear there for the sake of SEO.
Questions
Is there any way to apply this kind of rule to all subdirectories and pages without needing to go in and add the RewriteOptions inherit line to each subdirectory .htaccess? Given these are created dynamically by the CMS each time a site is created, manually managing the inclusion of that line isn't ideal.
Assuming that, is there any solution to resolve the "bad" URLs I receive from my attempt to utilize RewriteOptions inherit given what the CMS is placing into the subdirectories automatically?
Alternative
This last one is likely outside of this site's scope, but given it's related, I included it in case the preceding isn't doable or if the following is preferable:
Would it be possible to handle this kind of redirect using VirtualHosts entries? As far as I can tell in my case, both "example.com" and "www.example.com" resolve to the same IP and document root. If they could be separated, www.example.com could remain as is while example.com is set to go somewhere else, allowing for a clear redirect to occur, perhaps?
<VirtualHost 111.11.11.111:80>
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/
...
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

Yes indeed, to apply your rule to all the sub-directories insert this rule in <VirtualHost..> section:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]