[macrophyllum]

Hi,

I am exceeding my bandwidth with my current web hosting company so whenever someone tries to connect they get a 408 Request Timeout error. I have space on some other servers, like my .Mac account, but I don't know how to redirect users. Does anyone know how I can make it so that when a user gets a 408 error they will get redirected to a different URL?

I don't know much about web programming, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

[redJag]

That's something you'd have to discuss with your webhoster, since that's server-side configuration. Unless you have access to server configurations? It's fairly technical though. I'd suggest contacting your host first and then come back here.

[macrophyllum]

I asked my webhoster and this is what they said:

Create one error page and and store it in your httpdocs.So whenever you get the error 408 it will redirected to your customised page.
You can do this by adding the following line in your .htaccess file,
ErrorDocument 408 /path your error page.

I just don't know exactly how to code it?

Can someone post an example?

Thanks.

[Simon Mundy]

Originally posted by macrophyllum:
I asked my webhoster and this is what they said:

Create one error page and and store it in your httpdocs.So whenever you get the error 408 it will redirected to your customised page.
You can do this by adding the following line in your .htaccess file,
ErrorDocument 408 /path your error page.

I just don't know exactly how to code it?

Can someone post an example?

Thanks.

Just what they said, essentially!

Create a file on your desktop using (preferably) BBEdit, making sure UNIX style linefeeds are being used rather than Mac linefeeds - UNIX hates the combination of /r/n. You could also try using TextEdit on Mac OS X, or indeed any other text editor that allows you to create plain text files with UNIX style linefeeds.

(Note: I'm assuming you ARE using a UNIX/LINUX server... if you're running a windows box, then obviously use DOS style linefeeds!)

Make a file called 'htaccess' - no extensions. The correct name is actually '.htaccess' but most editors won't let you create a file with a '.' at the front of the file in OS X (not sure about OS 9 - it's been a while..)

If you'd like to redirect your users to an address called 'http://www.your-other-url.com/index.html' then you need only create 1 line which says:

Code:
ErrorDocument 408 http://www.your-other-url.com/index.html

That's it! Now upload that file to your top-level web directory on your server (the same one your index.html or default.htm file is kept) and rename it to .htaccess.

Should work straight away, although you're not really going to get an accurate indication until you're exceeding your bandwidth again.

Hope that helps

[redJag]

Good response except one thing: there's probably already a .htaccess file available when you log-on. Make sure you just edit this file rather than replacing it with a file that *only* has the 408 redirect on it. Good luck.

Travis
forté web design

edit:// Of course, if there isn't a file already just upload your own.

[macrophyllum]

Thanks folks! Works now. Once I uploaded the file I added "." to .htaccess.