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Paul
Asked: 2022-01-07 12:30:41 +0800 CST

Is there a technical requirement to serve 404 responses?

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Is there a technical requirement (e.g., RFC) to serve a 404 response?

Or does some other problem emerge if requests not found are dropped or replies empty?

http-status-code-404

0 Answers

  1. An HTTP server is required to reply with an HTTP response message. Every HTTP request returns a status code, see RFC 1945.

    The 4xx/5xx codes are just the error codes that are usually displayed to the user.

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  2. Best Answer

    RFC 7230 Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing (Standards Track)

    Section 2.1

    ...

    A server responds to a client's request by sending one or more HTTP response messages, each beginning with a status line that includes the protocol version, a success or error code, and textual reason phrase ...

    According to this RFC, you can't simply drop the connection or send an empty reply.

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