here's a puzzling HTTP 403

proxy server stuff

[ihtfp004]

What I want to do is have everyone that makes proxy requests through my server to be blocked from ALL websites and forced to look at my /index.html page no matter what website they enter.

So, this is what i've done so far:

ProxyBlock * (to allow users to connect to proxy but block all requests)

then i added ErrorDocument 403 /index.html (which theoretically sends all the users connecting through my proxy to be forced to view my index.html customized error page)

My proxy is blocking users all right, but the problem is that it isn't showing my customized HTTP 403 error page. It just keeps displaying the default microsoft one.

Am I approaching this all wrong? or am I just an idiot? thanks.

[jdMorgan]

> It just keeps displaying the default microsoft one.

"Microsoft" is the key here... If you saw the default *Apache* error page, that would be something different.

In their infinite wisdom, MS has decided that their 'friendly' error pages are better than our error pages, unless our error pages are above a certain size. I don't remember how big the page has to be in order to show, but try making it at least 512 bytes, and if that doesn't work, go to 1024.

This is really annoying behaviour on MS's part - don't get me started...

Jim

[ihtfp004]

hey thanks for that advice jdmorgan.

I finally got my server to do what I wanted.. I owe you one. I am forever grateful to you and webmasterworld.com

[gergoe]

If you're familiar with the microsoft registry, then navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\ErrorThresholds key, here are the caps for the responses, from which size the internet explorer will not display the built-in error page. For a 403 it is 256 bytes only.