[hobbit] Http "forbidden" errors

[Henrik Stoerner]

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 08:25:53AM -0500, Larry Barber wrote:
> Henrik, I currently have an http test that is getting a "403 Forbidden"
> response. Hobbit is not marking this as an error. Would it be possible to
> have Hobbit treat a "Forbidden" response as an error and alert on it?

Since Frederic has already been quoting my source-code, I guess it's
evident that I have been in doubt about this particular error code.

The reason it does not cause a yellow or red status is that "Forbidden"
is a common result when testing websites that require authentication.
Your Hobbit server may not have the required authentication, and in
that case a red status because of a 403 error would be misleading.

One could also argue that if the server is so much alive as to respond
with a "Forbidden" status, then there is a fair chance that it is 
actually running OK.

So my suggestion is that if you must have a red status if you get a 403
status back, then implement a content-check and look for something in
the response that must be present.


Regards,
Henrik