266049 - should send 410 not 404 for deleted files

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[timeless]

404: File Not Found

/quality/help/boilerplate.html

We are sorry, the file you requested could not be found.

Please check the spelling and punctuation. Our servers are case sensitive, so
also be sure that the address has the correct case.

--
It'd be nice if the server reported that the file was deleted instead of simply
listing the 404.

Comment 1

[dolphinling]

If we deleted it, we shouldn't be sending 404 anyway, we should be sending 410.

Comment 2

[Anne (:annevk)]

Was that file deleted? If so, dolphinling is right. (It's quite easy to make
that a 410 using .htaccess.)

Comment 3

[timeless]

it was dead in version 1.8 (when this bug was filed).

Comment 4

[dolphinling]

Well, a (meta refresh--that should be fixed) redirect has been added now, so
this particular file should be a 301.

http://rheet.mozilla.org/webtools/bonsai/cvslog.cgi?file=mozilla-org/html/quality/help/boilerplate.html

In general, though, I'm sure there are a few files around that should be 410 but
aren't. Do we even have a standard 410 page?

Comment 5

[timeless]

doubtful, note that this bug is about the general case, it just happened to be
filed in response to a specific instance.

Comment 6

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Look in the html directory, if there's a 410.html then we do, if not, we don't.

Comment 7

[Anne (:annevk)]

<http://www.mozilla.org/410.html>

Comment 8

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Anne: surely that's not the right place to check it in? Don't these things go in
some special webserver directory?

Gerv

Comment 9

[Anne (:annevk)]

Gerv, I don't know. I know it was checked in there, but something like
/http-errors/410.html might have been a better location.

However, I just pointed out it existed, which was a question in comment 6.

Comment 10

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Anne: surely that's not the right place to check it in? Don't these things go in
> some special webserver directory?

Gerv: They can go wherever we want to put them.  The root level of the document
root is where I've seen them on most other webservers I've personally seen that
have done this, so it's not that unusual of a place to put them.  They do have
to be inside the document root somewhere, because the config line in Apache that
adds them expects a URI, not a pathname.

Comment 11

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

We use 410 on files manually added to .htaccess as 410. This is working fine now that the 410.html is correctly used for these pages.

Please reopen this bug if you have a list of files that are deleted and currently respond with 404 (and should be responding with 410).