HTTP Return Codes

Here's a fairly complete list for reference.

100 Continue
101 Switching Protocols
200 OK
201 Created
202 Accepted
203 Non-Authoritative Information
204 No Content
205 Reset Content
206 Partial Content
300 Multiple Choices
301 Moved Permanently
302 Moved Temporarily
303 See Other
304 Not Modified
305 Use Proxy
400 Bad Request
401 Unauthorized
402 Payment Required
403 Forbidden
404 Not Found
405 Method Not Allowed
406 Not Acceptable
407 Proxy Authentication Required
408 Request Time-Out
409 Conflict
410 Gone
411 Length Required
412 Precondition Failed
413 Request Entity Too Large
414 Request-URL Too Large
415 Unsupported Media Type
500 Server Error
501 Not Implemented
502 Bad Gateway
503 Out of Resources
504 Gateway Time-out
505 HTTP Version not supported

 

HTTP Return Codes
By Sandra Henry-Stocker

(Excerpts from an article in UNIX SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION --- January 16, 2002
Published by ITworld.com -- changing the way you view IT
http://www.itworld.com/newsletters)

What surprises many people is how many return codes are defined. Though
most of us will never see more than three or four unique return codes
in our access logs, several dozen have been defined and each uniquely
describes a different condition. Further, the codes are divided into
four categories. Each category reserves a range of 100 possible values
and defines a broad class of possible conditions.

Return codes in the 100-199 ranges are called informational codes. They
basically provide information about the request or the servers
involved. Return codes in the 200-299 ranges are called "success"
codes. Though 200 is the most common of these, several others exist and
are used to indicate that the requested file is empty (no content) or
simply that the request was accepted.

Return codes in the 300-399 range are broadly defined as redirects.
This ranges includes codes such a 304?? Which indicates that the
file requested has been cached and does not need to be downloaded
again.

Return codes in the 400-499 ranges are referred to as "client errors".
A client may, for example, request a page that doesn't exist. The
ultimate cause of such an error may be a badly defined link on the
server itself or on another server, but the error s still referred to
as a client error. Other 400 level errors include "forbidden"
and "unauthorized".

Return codes in the 500-599 ranges are referred to as "server errors".
These errors indicate that there is an internal server error or a
configuration problem that is preventing the server from properly
responding to the request. This type of error is most often encountered
in Web sites that are considerably more complex than static HTML.
Problems retrieving information from a database or interpreting Java
code might be behind server errors.

About the author(s)
-------------------
Sandra Henry-Stocker (a.k.a S. Lee Henry) has administered Unix systems
for over 17 years. In fact, she describes herself as "USL" (UNIX as a
second language) and barely remembers enough English to write books and
buy groceries. She currently works for TeleCommunications Systems, a
wireless technology company in Annapolis, MD.