redirect any link on any subdomain-url to another domain

Question

I registered a expired domain to forward all incoming links to another domain. The problem is: many inlinks are placed on subdomains, for example: axa-art.cdn.contento-v41.eu/axa-art/0eee9cec-58cb-45b2-a4e2-b5f73920068e_091216_axa+art_classic+car+study_de_rz.pdf

I am looking for a 301 redirect rule in htaccess that forward any url (no matter on main domain or subdomain) to "new-url.tld"

axa-art.cdn.contento-v41.eu
axa-art.cdn.contento-v41.eu/slug
any-subdomain.contento-v41.eu
any-subdomain.contento-v41.eu/slug

all of this example above should forward to this exact URL: new-domain.tld

Question 1:
Is it possible to create a "general" rule and place it into htaccess of the main directory?

Question 2:
Or do i have to write a specific rule for each subdomain?

Question 3:
Do I have to create a sub-directory and create a separate htaccess in every sub-directory for each subdomain I want to add redirection-rules?

Help or suggestions are highly appreciated. Thank you very much for your help in advance.

Answer 1

This isn't just a .htaccess question. In order for your server to receive requests to <any-subdomain>.example.com the necessary DNS and server config directives need to be in place. If the request doesn't reach your server then you can't implement a redirect in .htaccess.

So, I suspect that these subdomains are not even resolving?

You either need to create the necessary DNS A records and ServerAlias directives one by one for each hostname (ie. subdomain) or create a "wildcard" DNS A record (and ServerAlias *.example.com directive in the vHost). But then you still have an issue with these hostnames being covered by an SSL cert if you need to redirect from HTTPS.

You can then create the necessary redirect in .htaccess. Although, since you need access to the server config (or a using a control panel that does this for you) to implement the directives above, you should also implement this redirect in the server config also.

For example, at the top of your .htaccess file, before the existing directives (or in your vHost):

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^new\.example$
RewriteRule ^ https://new.example%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

The above states... for any request that is not for new.example then 301 redirect to https://new.example/<same-url>.

However, if you have access to the server config and this other domain is configured in its own vHost container then the redirect can be simplified:

Redirect 301 / https://new.example/

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UPDATE#1:

this rule does forward any URL form the main domain to the new domain.

# Permanent URL redirect- by netgrade
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !https://www.marco-mahling.de/$
RewriteRule $ https://www.marco-mahling.de/ [R=302,L]

The rule I posted above should probably replace your existing rule entirely.

Yes, your rule does redirect every URL to the root of the new domain, but it is arguably incorrect. The RewriteCond directive is superflous and isn't actually doing anything. The REQUEST_URI server variable contains the URL-path, it never contains the scheme + hostname. So, the RewriteCond directive you've posted will always be successful.

If that is the rule you currently have then it would already redirect everything. In which case your problem would seem to the necessary DNS and server config directives as mentioned above.

From your directives, I assume that the other domain actually points to a different server (or different vHost on the same server). Otherwise, this would have resulted in a redirect-loop. In which case, you only need the much simpler Redirect directive that I posted above.

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UPDATE#2: That works fine BUT the incoming links are still not forwarded cuz of a "%" in the url: https://axa-art.cdn.contento-v41.eu/axa-art%2F0eee9cec-58cb-45b2-a4e2-b5f73920068e_091216_axa+art_classic+car+study_de_rz.pdf

It's actually because of the %2F - an encoded slash (/) in the URL-path. By default, Apache will reject such URLs with a 404 (for security reasons).

To allow encoded slashes in the URL you would need to set AllowEncodedSlashes On in the server config (or vHost container). You cannot set this in .htaccess. (The server generated 404 occurs before .htaccess is even processed.)

However, I would express caution about enabling this feature. (Is there a specific requirement here? Are you recreating these documents on the new server?)

If this request was intended to map directly to a PDF file on disk then this actually looks like an incorrectly URL encoded request, since a slash / is not a permitted filename character on either Windows or Linux.

If you enable AllowEncodedSlashes then the above RewriteRule will redirect the request to /axa-art/0eee9cec....pdf - note the %-decoded / in the resulting URL. You would need to take additional steps to maintain the URL-encoding (if that was required), but as I say, that looks like a mistake to begin with.