Re: checklink: error codes

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004, Tex Texin wrote:

> It would be good if the tool provided more information on what the
  errors mean
> or can cause them.
>
> This is especially true when reporting problems for which the link seems to
> work.
>
> For example this page
> http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/hebrew.html
>
> currently has 2 403 errors on the links to sil.org. However, executing the link
> brings up the page just fine.

OK, the reason for that is that sil.org's webserver is deeply broken and
doesn't support HTTP.  Specifically, it returns inconsistent responses to
HEAD and GET requests, in violation of every HTTP specification.
So brokennness is expected behavoiur.

As regards explanations, you have a good point.  The text under What
to do for 403 is woefully inadequate.  The difficulty is that to do it
justice calls for rather more than could fit in the space.  In the case
of 403, for instance, I would refer readers to an article by Apache
guru Rich Bowen dealing with causes of 403 errors and how to fix them,
due to pe published shortly at OReilley's onlamp site.

-- 
Nick Kew

Nick's manifesto: http://www.htmlhelp.com/~nick/

Received on Monday, 5 April 2004 05:11:57 UTC