Topic: Changing the "status code" of responses

[zckzck]

Hi,
I've been trying to change the status-code of responses sent by the server for quite some time now, but haven't been successful.

I want my Apache server to serve a 200 status code, instead of, for example 500 or 403 responses.

I know that I can manipulate the custom error page, as is described here:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/custom-error.html
but the status code stays the same.

How do I do this?

Thanks!

[James Blond]

200 comes every time when you call a normal page
403 is only when it is forbidden ^^
500 you messed something up in your httpd.conf

http://localhost/icons/ should give a 200

Custom Error Response means only that you can create an own error page

e.g.

[tdonovan]

If the 403 or 500 status codes are generated by Apache - no, there is no way to directly change the status-code of Apache responses. Changing the custom error page does not change the status-code. These codes are built into Apache, and you would need to alter the Apache source code to change them.

If your reponses are from PHP (or from some other script or CGI module), then there usually is a way to control the status-codes. With PHP you can do this with the header function.

One (very kludgey) way to get a 200 status in two steps is to use the ErrorDocument directive with a full URL, like this:

[zckzck]

Thanks tdonovan.

The reason I want to alter the status code of the responses is because somtimes the responses may reveal certain information that will help a hacker hack the server.
For example: If the directory "admin" exists but the hacker doesn't have access to it, he will see a 403 response, which will reveal that this directory really exists, while for the directory "asfasfzxbcasgwe" he will receive a 404 response code.
Now the hacker knows that this dir exists and may try to access it in other ways...
If the hacker will receive some other response code he wouldn't know that the directory exists.

Maybe this could be done through mod security?

Thanks.