How to redirect fake .htaccess path from 403 to 404

Question

On my Drupal sites if I go to fake url like: mysite.com/.htacess/nothing-here I get a 403 Forbidden (never hits Drupal). Is there a way we can redirect it to a 404 instead of 403?

Answer 1

In order to catch server 403 as custom 404 you need to use the ErrorDocument directive (assuming you're using Apache HTTP Server) :

In the event of a problem or error, Apache httpd can be configured to do one of four things :

• output a simple hardcoded error message
• output a customized message
• internally redirect to a local URL-path to handle the problem/error
• redirect to an external URL to handle the problem/error

So to let Drupal handle the document, set the following (httpd.conf) :

ErrorDocument 403 /index.php

Note : Additional environment variables are available when an error redirect is sent : these variables are generated from the headers provided to the original request by prepending REDIRECT_ onto the original header name. This provides the error document the context of the original request (eg. REDIRECT_URL, REDIRECT_STATUS, REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING).