Manual:$wgForceHTTPS

Server URLs and file paths: $wgForceHTTPS
Redirect insecure HTTP requests to HTTPS.
Introduced in version:	1.34.3 (Gerrit change 608504; git #c75eef91)
Removed in version:	Still in use
Allowed values:	(boolean)
Default value:	false (gerrit:608504, gerrit:612497, gerrit:615840)
Other settings: Alphabetical | By function

Details

If this configuration parameter is set to true when receiving an insecure HTTP request, it will always redirect to HTTPS. This overrides and disables the preferhttps user preference, and it overrides $wgSecureLogin .

$wgServer may be either https or protocol-relative. If $wgServer starts with "http://", an exception will be thrown.

If a reverse proxy or CDN is used to forward requests from HTTPS to HTTP, the request header "X-Forwarded-Proto: https" should be sent to suppress the redirect.

In addition to setting this to true, for optimal security, the webserver should also be configured to send HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) response headers.

When $wgForceHTTPS is set to false, HTTP/HTTPS preference is tracked on a per-user basis, by a combination of:

• the prefershttps user preference
• the cookie forceHTTPS and session metadata (available via Session::shouldForceHTTPS())
  • eventual PHP hooks changing session metadata (Manual:Hooks/SessionMetadata )
• the PHP method Session::setForceHTTPS()

Availability

This variable was added in MediaWiki 1.35.0 (gerrit:608504). It was back-ported to 1.34 as part of the MediaWiki 1.34.3 release (gerrit:612497) as well as to 1.31 as part of the MediaWiki 1.31.9 release (gerrit:615840).

See also

• Manual:HTTPS