404s causing error_log bloat

.htaccess question

[keyplyr]

While the following code seems to be diminishing the number of FP and Office request (thanks jdMorgan):

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} MS.*FrontPage [NC]
RewriteRule!^forbidden\.html$ - [F]
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} MS.*Office [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} MSOffice [NC]
RewriteRule!^forbidden\.html$ - [F]

Still, I sometimes get between 50 to 100 KB daily requests for:

_vti_bin/owssvr.dll

causing 404s to fill my error_logs.

Any suggestions how I can stop them? Thanks.

[jdMorgan]

keyplyr,

You can't really stop them, since this request is a result of having a "web collaboration" option enabled in IE. You could, however, either 403 them or transparently redirect them to an empty text file. This would keep the entries out of your error log, and reduce the wasted bandwidth of serving up your custom 404 page.

RewriteRule \_vti\_bin/owssvr\.dll$ - [F]

-or-

RewriteRule \_vti\_bin/owssvr\.dll$ /nullfile.txt [L]

I use the first approach, and serve a very small custom 403-Forbidden page. It contains only the message "403-Access Denied" and a text link and a meta-refresh to much longer page whose primary purpose is to help anyone who might get there by mistake or through "curiosity-hacking." It describes the possible reasons for getting blocked or banned, lists most of the applicable Terms of Service points, and promises that the error will be investigated and corrected if it was an error. This second page used to be my primary 403 error page, but it was consuming too much bandwidth, so I added the short interstitial page to fix that. Bad-bots almost never follow the link from the short page to the long page, so it saves bandwidth and helps me flag possible "innocent victims."

HTH,
Jim

[keyplyr]

Thanks again Jim, I'll add: RewriteRule \_vti\_bin/owssvr\.dll$ - [F]
My 403 page is pretty small.