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Accepted
C.A. Vuyk
Asked: 2014-10-25 23:40:20 +0800 CST

With nginx serve a custom 404 page with header 404, without changing the browseraddress

  • 772

How do I force nginx to serve a custom 404 page while responding with a 404 header, without changing the address of the browser so the user can easily retype?

set $allowed 0; #(updated after comments)
error_page  404  /404page.html; #(updated after first answer, forgot to mention)

    location = /authreq.html {
    if ($allowed = 0){
#   return 307 $scheme://$host/404page.html ; #works but should be 404
#   return 404 "shows this message"; #does not redirect when inserting url instead of message
# rewrite ^ /404page.html break; #serves 404page.html and doesn't change browseraddress which is good, but sends a response header 200
# return 404 # invokes error_page directive with header 200 

    }
}

The whole configuration:

server {

    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
    server_name www.fellowshipmedia.eu;
    server_name localhost;
    root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index index.php index.html index.htm;
    error_page   404  =  /404page.html;
    set $allowed 0;

    location = /authreq.html {
        if ($allowed = 0){
           # return 307 $scheme://$host/404page.html ; #works but should be 404
           # return 404 "shows this message"; #does not redirect when inserting url instead of message
           return 404; #
           # rewrite ^ /404page.html break; #serves 404page.html and doesn't change browseraddress which is good, but sends a response header 200
        }
    }



}
nginx

2 Answers

  1. Wouldn't the error_page directive do this for you you?

    For example something like this:

    server {
...   
  error_page  404  /404page.html;
...
  location = /authreq.html {
    if ($allowed = 0){
      return 404;
    }
  }
}
    • 2
  2. Best Answer

    Simply doing the following will not return a 404 header but a 200:

        server {
...   
  error_page  404  /404page.html;
...
  location = /authreq.html {
    if ($allowed = 0){
      return 404;
    }
  }
}

    To invoke a 404 header and serve a custom 404 page without changing the browsers' addressbar address you should add '404' in the error_page directive like so:

        error_page   404  =404  /404page.html;
    • 2