IIS returns 200 status for files that don't exist. How do I fix it?

[rreigan]

Hi all,
With a developer position, I inherited a web server (IIS 6.0), that I should administer. Going throug a web log I noticed GET,POST,PUT entries for non-existing files and for some reason server responds with 200 (OK) status code, when it should be 404.

How do I fix it, so IIS returns proper code? I went through site properties bout found nothing I could tweak.

Here's an example where I don't have a robots.txt on server.

2007-07-17 15:03:30 W3SVC1 xx.x.xx.xx GET /robots.txt - 80 - 65.55.215.51 msnbot/1.0+(+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm) - - 200 0 0 382 159 15

[Receptional Andy]

Is a custom error page defined? If so this may be causing the problem. If you use a 'URL' as a custom error on some IIS installs it will always deliver a 200 status code. Never quite got to the bottom of that one, but using a 'file' solves the problem.

[edited by: Receptional_Andy at 1:57 pm (utc) on July 20, 2007]

[rreigan]

Thanks Andy.
Problem is that my 404 page is not static html page. It's an ASP page that extracts referer, current path and processes user submitted notification.
So, if I change to a file, ASP stops working.

[LifeinAsia]

It stops working if you return it to the default setting for 404? THat definitely sounds strange...

[Receptional Andy]

Problem is that my 404 page is not static html page. It's an ASP page

Simple fix then - explicitly set a 404 header within your ASP page:

Response.Status = "404 Not Found"

[rreigan]

Andy,
That seems to be working. Thanks so much.

Steve