IIS rewrite rule for http to https with canonical host - iis

Question

Environment:
Windows Server 2012 R2
IIS 8.5
Challenge
Completely new to rewrite rules and I need to implement a rule that does two things:
Change protocol from http to https
Change host name to www.example.com
Problem is I cannot really test this per se, because our SSL certificate only exists on our production site, so I need to make sure I get this right.
In doing the research I found the documentation regarding rewrite rules somewhat sparse, but cobbled together the following from various examples, etc.:
<rule name=”http_to_https_redirect">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions><add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="^OFF$" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://www.example.com/{R:1}" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>
I still have no clue as to what {R:1} means or how it behaves as I found only a short blurb about it being a “Back-references to rule patterns are identified by {R:N} where N is from 0 to 9. Note that for both types of back-references, {R:0} and {C:0}, will contain the matched string.” (from: https://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/url-rewrite-module-configuration-reference)
Question:
Is the above rule correct as per points 1 and 2 above?
Hopefully someone with a little more experience can confirm – yes / no ?
Also found this post:
IIS Url Rewrite rule HTTP to HTTPS AND add WWW
... but the actual rewrite rule was never posted in the answer!

Answer 1

The rewrite url to accomplish the redirect using https and the canonical host is as follows:
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="redirect_http_to_https_with_canonical_host" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny" trackAllCaptures="false">
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" />
<add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="www\.example\.com" negate="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://www.example.com{URL}" appendQueryString="true" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
The above works for the following cases:
Input: http://example.com
Result: https://www.example.com
Input: http://www.example.com
Result: https://www.example.com
Input: http://example.com/somepage.aspx
Result: https://www.example.com/somepage.aspx
Input: http://example.com/somepage.aspx?q=test
Result: https://www.example.com/somepage.aspx?q=test
Input: https://example.com
Result: https://www.example.com
Input: https://www.example.com
Result: https://www.example.com
Input: https://example.com/somepage.aspx
Result: https://www.example.com/somepage.aspx
Input: https://example.com/somepage.aspx?q=test
Result: https://www.example.com/somepage.aspx?q=test