Apache htaccess detects disallowed method but does not return error page

Question

I am trying to see if a custom error page can be sent to the browser when an invalid method is sent to the server.

In my .htaccess is this:

ErrorDocument 400 /errpages/httperror.php
ErrorDocument 401 /errpages/httperror.php
ErrorDocument 403 /errpages/httperror.php
ErrorDocument 404 /errpages/httperror.php
ErrorDocument 405 /errpages/httperror.php

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !^(GET|POST) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [R=405,L]

It works as expected, and while using Postman to create a HEAD request I receive the expected 405 response in the header.

However, what I want is the 405 error page not just the header. Is it possible to modify what I have to make that happen?

Answer 1

Not all request methods will receive a response body as part of the HTTP response.

The webserver does not (should not) send back a response body in response to a HEAD request (and any user-agent should discard it if it does), so that's why you are not seeing your error document as part of the response in your example. The same with PUT and TRACE requests (although servers vary). For other request methods you should see your error document in the response body (although what the user-agent does with this is another matter).

This has nothing to do with the 405 response you are sending back, the same would apply to any other HTTP response code.