Apache htaccess return 404 code even if page exists without using rewrite mod:

Question

To protect my server from bots, I want to return a 404 error page if certain files are requested EVEN IF THEY EXIST but without using the rewrite mod. It is possible?

Answer 1

You can use a mod_alias Redirect (or RedirectMatch) directive.

For example:

Redirect 404 /file1.html
Redirect 404 /file2.html

This doesn't actually trigger a "redirect", as in an external 3xx redirect. It sends the stated 404 response if one of the URLs is requested (regardless of whether that file exists or not).

Reference:

• https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_alias.html#redirect

If there is a pattern to these URLs then use a RedirectMatch directive instead, which matches against a regex rather than using simple prefix-matching. For example, to serve a 404 for all requests to the /secret subdirectory (and all files within) then use the following:

RedirectMatch 404 ^/secret($|/)

To customise the 404 response use an ErrorDocument directive:

ErrorDocument 404 /error-docs/404.html