Status codes & redirects

Redirects help prevent search engines from indexing duplicate content. They also help with legacy website migration.

You can also use HTTP status codes for specific paths to signal temporary maintenance (503 Service Not Available) or intentionally-deleted content (410 Gone).

Ferron has status directive for configuring both custom HTTP status codes, and redirects.

Domain canonicalization⁠#

A common pattern redirects URLs from a www subdomain to an apex domain (or from an apex domain to a www subdomain):

www.example.com {
    # 301 - Moved Permanently (permanent redirect with always GET)
    # 302 - Found (temporary redirect with always GET)
    # 307 - Temporary Redirect (temporary redirect with HTTP method preservation)
    # 308 - Permanent Redirect (permanent redirect with HTTP method preservation)
    status 308 {
        location "https://example.com{{request.uri}}"
    }
}

example.org {
    status 308 {
        location "https://www.example.org{{request.uri}}"
    }
}

Moving domain names⁠#

If you want to move domain names, use redirects to help with that:

old.example.com {
    status 308 {
        location "https://example.com{{request.uri}}"
    }
}

example.com {
    root /var/www/html
}

Legacy route migration⁠#

Some websites have legacy routes that you must migrate (for example, for legacy clients or software). You can configure Ferron to handle these routes:

blog.example.com {
    status 308 {
        regex r"^/blog($|[/?#].*)"
        location "/posts$1"
    }
}

Intentional removal⁠#

For intentionally-removed resources, use this configuration:

old.example.com {
    # 410 Gone
    status 410 {
        url /posts/some-deleted-content
    }
}

Maintenance mode⁠#

When closing a website for maintenance, use this configuration:

example.com {
    # 503 Service Unavailable
    status 503
}