418

Preface

Preface

Let’s make no mistake about this: 418 is an error!

Originally an April Fool’s joke, 418 (four eighteen) is a response code given when a request to brew coffee is made to a web service that actually happens to be a teapot. As we all know, teapots can’t make coffee, to ask a teapot to do the impossible is an error.

However, since most internet browsers ignore 418, this has created an opportunity for enterprising network engineers to use it to flag situations where something isn’t right but hasn’t really gone wrong.

Imagine you are trying to find the results of a bug or security issue within the weblogs of your commercial web cluster. Those weblogs are gushing torrents of text, you can read them, but it would be impossible to keep up. By the time you found what you were looking for, the information is of no use, stale and obsolete. Here is where four eighteen comes to the rescue! With a little server configuration, we can have certain events trigger a 418 response. Now we can pluck those responses from the endless plumes of data exhaust. We have an opportunity to analyze the system state, client state, data and even bits of code being executed; a chance to prevent something that would be unpleasant, without grinding the system to a halt.

So here I present to you, 418. Just to let you know that something isn’t right, hasn’t really gone wrong; but you might want to look at this and give it some thought before something awful happens.

Please enjoy the story,

Edgar Scott