need to remove www from 2nd level subdomain generically in Apache (using rewrite) - apache

Question

I have the problem but with many subdomains: E.g..
sub1.domain.com and new.domain.com and xsub.domain.com and many many more like this.
How do I remove the www from in front of any of these with one generic rule.
E.g. if someone types www..domain.com or http://www..domain.com to change it to
http://.domain.com
Thanks

Answer 1

You may use the rewrite module to remove the www. when it precedes a sub-domain. In this way, an address like: www.sub1.domain.com would be redirected to sub1.domain.com:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymLinks
Options +Indexes
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !www.domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,NC,L]
</IfModule>

Answer 2

Modified tested solution but for http only.
#Allow domain of the form www.domain.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.([^\..]*)\.([^\..]*)$ [NC]
#Otherwise any other form must be rewritten to remove www
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*) [NC]
#Substitue the complete domain using group %1 in the parentheses of the above condition
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

Answer 3

This will do the job, and return with http://
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%1/$1 [R,L]
For https, just add the s, as so:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%1/$1 [R,L]
Note that this can be done in httpd.conf as well. Using .htaccess is popular but actually slows down the site, especially if there are nested directories.
You do need:
Options +FollowSymLinks
But you do not need Indexes.