HTTP 406 Not Acceptable

Overview

The HTTP 406 Not Acceptable status code is used when the server cannot produce a response matching the list of acceptable values defined in the request’s proactive content negotiation headers, such as Accept, Accept-Charset, Accept-Encoding, and Accept-Language.

Purpose

The HTTP 406 response indicates that the server can generate a response for the requested resource, but that response is not acceptable according to the Accept headers sent in the request.

Usage

Client Behavior:

Send Request with Accept Headers: The client sends an HTTP request including headers like Accept to specify the response formats it is willing to receive.
Receive Response: The client receives the HTTP 406 status code if the server cannot provide a response in any of the acceptable formats.

Server Behavior:

Evaluate Accept Headers: The server evaluates the request’s Accept headers against its capabilities to produce a response.
Send Response: If no acceptable formats are available, the server sends a 406 Not Acceptable response.

Scenarios

Content Negotiation: When the client specifies a particular format for the response which the server cannot fulfill.
Limited Resource Formats: Resources that are only available in formats not acceptable to the client.

Sequence Diagram

Illustrating the process for an HTTP 406 response:

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant Server as Web Server

    Note over Client: Client requests with specific accept headers
    Client->>Server: GET /resource HTTP/1.1
    Client->>Server: Accept: application/xml
    Note over Server: Server cannot provide XML format
    Server->>Client: HTTP/1.1 406 Not Acceptable

Curl Request and Response Example

Requesting a resource with specific Accept headers using Curl:

curl -i -H "Accept: application/xml" http://example.com/resource
# Expected response: HTTP/1.1 406 Not Acceptable

PHP cURL Request and Response Example

PHP script using cURL to handle a 406 Not Acceptable response:

<?php
$ch = curl_init('http://example.com/resource');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Accept: application/xml'));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE) == 406) {
    echo "Requested format not acceptable.";
}
curl_close($ch);
?>

Python Request and Response Example

Python script to send a GET request with specific Accept headers and handle a 406 Not Acceptable response:

import requests
headers = {'Accept': 'application/xml'}
response = requests.get('http://example.com/resource', headers=headers)
if response.status_code == 406:
    print("Requested format not acceptable")

Apache Configuration for HTTP 406 Not Acceptable

Configuring Apache to handle content negotiation and 406 responses:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com
    # Configuration for content negotiation and handling 406 Not Acceptable
    # ...
</VirtualHost>

NGINX Configuration for HTTP 406 Not Acceptable

Setting up NGINX to manage content negotiation and 406 responses:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    location /resource {
        # Directives for handling different Accept headers
        # ...
    }
}

HTTP 405 Method Not Allowed HTTP 407 Proxy Authentication Required