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I can't get a custom error document to work for 400 Bad Request. It's a CentOS LAMP server.

ErrorDocument 400 /badrdoc.html

I've tried using the above in:

  1. Apache http.conf
  2. Apache httpd-vhosts.conf (in each vhost)
  3. .htaccess in the root htdocs of the site

None of them are working. Apache is serving its default 400 Bad Request page.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Edit: forgot to mention, I have restarted Apache after changes.

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  • Did you restart the httpd service ? Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 18:15
  • @lain, sorry forgot to mention yes I have restarted Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 18:26
  • Check your /var/log/httpd/error_log for relevant information. Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 18:31
  • This question suggests that Apache might ignore the ErrorDocument 400 for some requests. Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 18:38
  • @Ladadadada good link. I am sending a malformed request. Is there no way at all to get my custom 400 doc served? Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 18:44

1 Answer 1

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I had quite some trouble getting a custom 400 error document to work. I added this to the top level of my Apache conf:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html ErrorDocument 400 /400.html

And created the two error documents in the DocumentRoot. First, I tested the 404 with:

echo -en "GET /foo HTTP/1.0\n\n" | nc 127.0.0.1 80

This returned my custom 404.

Then the 400 (Note that the leading slash is missing):

echo -en "GET foo HTTP/1.0\n\n" | nc 127.0.0.1 80

The response was the default Apache 400.

I did manage to get my custom 400 back by talking HTTP to an HTTPS vhost:

echo -en "GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n" | nc 127.0.0.1 443

You still get the same custom 400 back, even if you make an invalid request:

echo -en "GET foo HTTP/1.0\n\n" | nc 127.0.0.1 443

Unfortunately for your testing, talking SSL to a non-ssl vhost doesn't result in a 400 of any sort. I still haven't figured out how to get a custom ErrorDocuemnt 400 to be sent back on port 80.

P.S. I remember reading somewhere that an ErrorDocument 400 won't work inside a .htaccess file as it may not be possible to even determine the correct DocumentRoot if the request is malformed. The same probably applies to name based virtualhosts.

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  • good info thanks. I am causing a malformed request by sending an extra long cookie, to invoke the bad request. In this case I don't think it's possible to serve a custom 400 doc, but it is interesting that it works in the ssl/non ssl case. Commented Apr 2, 2012 at 8:28

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