Regex to match all https URLs except a certain path

Question

I need a regex that will match all https URLs except for a certain path.

e.g.

Match

https://www.domain.com/blog https://www.domain.com

Do Not Match

https://www.domain.com/forms/*

This is what I have so far:

<rule name="Redirect from HTTPS to HTTP excluding /forms" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
    <match url=".*" />
    <conditions>
        <add input="{URL}" pattern="^https://[^/]+(/(?!(forms/|forms$)).*)?$" />
    </conditions>
    <action type="Redirect" url="http://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:0}" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>

But it doesn't work

Answer 1

The way the redirect module works, you should simply use:

<rule name="Redirect from HTTPS to HTTP excluding /forms" stopProcessing="true">
    <match url="^forms/?" negate="true" />
    <conditions>
        <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="^ON$" />
    </conditions>
    <action type="Redirect" url="http://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:0}" />
</rule>

The rule will trigger the redirect to HTTP only if the request was HTTPS and if the path wasn't starting with forms/ or forms (using the negate="true" option).
You could also add a condition for the host to match www.example.com as following:

<rule name="Redirect from HTTPS to HTTP excluding /forms" stopProcessing="true">
    <match url="^forms/?" negate="true" />
    <conditions>
        <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="^ON$" />
        <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^www.example.com$" />
    </conditions>
    <action type="Redirect" url="http://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:0}" />
</rule>

Answer 2

Does this give you the behavior you're looking for?

https?://[^/]+($|/(?!forms)/?.*$)

After the www.domain.com bit, it's looking for either the end of the string, or for a slash and then something that ISN'T forms.

Answer 3

I came up with the following pattern: ^https://[^/]+(/(?!form/|form$).*)?$

Explanation:

• ^ : match begin of string
• https:// : match https://
• [^/]+ : match anything except forward slash one or more times
• ( : start matching group 1
  • / : match /
  • (?! : negative lookahead
    • form/ : check if there is no form/
    • | : or
    • form$ : check if there is no form at the end of the string
  • ) : end negative lookahead
  • .* : match everything zero or more times
• ) : end matching group 1
• ? : make the previous token optional
• $ : match end of line

Answer 4

I see two issues in the posted pattern http://[^/]+($|/(?!forms)/?.*$)

• It misses redirecting URLs such as https://domain.com/forms_instructions, since the pattern fails to match those also.

• I believe you have http and https reversed between the pattern and the URL. The pattern should have https and the URL http.

Perhaps this will work as you intend:

 <rule name="Redirect from HTTPS to HTTP excluding /forms" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
        <match url="^https://[^/]+(/(?!(forms/|forms$)).*)?$" />
        <action type="Redirect" url="http://{HTTP_HOST}{R:1}" redirectType="Permanent" />
    </rule>

Edit: I've moved the pattern to the tag itself since matching everything with .* and then using an additional condition seems unnecessary. I've also changed the redirection URL to use the part of the input URL captured by the brackets in the match.