How to Force HTTPS or HTTP for different URLs

Edit this page

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 2.3, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 6.3 (the current stable version).

How to Force HTTPS or HTTP for different URLs

You can force areas of your site to use the HTTPS protocol in the security config. This is done through the access_control rules using the requires_channel option. For example, if you want to force all URLs starting with /secure to use HTTPS then you could use the following configuration:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
        # app/config/security.yml
security:
    # ...

    access_control:
        - { path: ^/secure, roles: ROLE_ADMIN, requires_channel: https }
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        <!-- app/config/security.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<srv:container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/security"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:srv="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <config>
        <!-- ... -->

        <rule path="^/secure" role="ROLE_ADMIN" requires_channel="https" />
    </config>
</srv:container>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
        // app/config/security.php
$container->loadFromExtension('security', array(
    // ...

    'access_control' => array(
        array(
            'path'             => '^/secure',
            'role'             => 'ROLE_ADMIN',
            'requires_channel' => 'https',
        ),
    ),
));
    

The login form itself needs to allow anonymous access, otherwise users will be unable to authenticate. To force it to use HTTPS you can still use access_control rules by using the IS_AUTHENTICATED_ANONYMOUSLY role:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
        # app/config/security.yml
security:
    # ...

    access_control:
        - { path: ^/login, roles: IS_AUTHENTICATED_ANONYMOUSLY, requires_channel: https }
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
        <!-- app/config/security.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<srv:container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/security"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:srv="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <config>
        <!-- ... -->

        <rule path="^/login"
            role="IS_AUTHENTICATED_ANONYMOUSLY"
            requires_channel="https"
        />
    </config>
</srv:container>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
        // app/config/security.php
$container->loadFromExtension('security', array(
    // ...

    'access_control' => array(
        array(
            'path'             => '^/login',
            'role'             => 'IS_AUTHENTICATED_ANONYMOUSLY',
            'requires_channel' => 'https',
        ),
    ),
));
    

It is also possible to specify using HTTPS in the routing configuration, see How to Force Routes to always Use HTTPS or HTTP for more details.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.

How to Force HTTPS or HTTP for different URLs

How to Force HTTPS or HTTP for different URLs

What is Symfony?

Learn Symfony

Screencasts

Community

Blog

Services

Deployed on