RewriteRule ^$ https://www.google.com : eventually want to redirect / to /something_else/index.html

Question

I've apt install apache2 for 100% stock ubuntu 22.04 apache2 , run a2enmod rewrite, added these lines to ./sites-available/000-default.conf, and restarted apache2.

 LogLevel info ssl:warn rewrite:trace8
 RewriteEngine On
 RewriteRule ^$ https://www.google.com

When I access my host in chrome http://192.168.56.5, I am not redirected, The log says (minus timestamps, ip numbers and mod_rewrite.c(480) ) :

init rewrite engine with requested uri /
applying pattern '^$' to uri '/'
pass through /
init rewrite engine with requested uri /index.html
applying pattern '^$' to uri '/index.html'
pass through /index.html

Eventually I'd like to redirect / to /someplace_else/index.html , I'm attempting the redirect to google to avoid re-write loops.

I am not using an .htaccess file.

I'd expect to be re-directed to google since the snippet seems pretty widely given as an answer.

Answer 1

This: RewriteRule ^$ https://www.google.com

Should be:

RewriteRule ^/$ https://www.google.com

Everything works now.