CUSTOMIZING ERROR MESSAGES
There are two main styles of error messages you may encounter.
The first is the standard form, which looks something like:
File
Not found
The requested URL your_domain/filename.html was not found
on this server.
The second type comes in a variety of forms, but is customized
by the webmaster. For example:
Sorry
We're sorry, but the requested URL does not exist. Please
e-mail support@your_domain.com if you need further assistance.
Such messages are called error documents, and are web pages
designed to give a polite explanation for error conditions.
These error conditions generate numbers which are used to
refer to the appropriate error condition. Some of the most
common messages are as follows:
Error in Client
400 Bad syntax
401 Unauthorized
402 Not Used (Payment Granted)
403 Forbidden
404 Not Found
Error in Server
500 Internal Error
501 Not Implemented
502 Overloaded
503 Gateway Timeout
How do I customize error messages?
First, create the HTML page you want to use as your error
message and upload it to your /www directory.
Next, go into your '.htaccess' file (or create one)
and add lines which specify the substitution.
Here are three examples of specifying error documents which
will be called for a given error condition (note you can use
relative or absolute addressing):
ErrorDocument 401 http://your_domain.com/nopasswd.html
ErrorDocument 403 /forbidden.html ErrorDocument
404 http://www.your_domain.com/nofile.html
Mime Types
You can add mime types to your '.htaccess' file with a
line like:
AddType text/html .txt