Correct http status code for resource which requires authorization

Question

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the correct http status code to return if the user tries to access a page which requires the user to login.

So basically what

Answer 1

Your "TL;DR" doesn't match the "TL" version.

The proper response for requesting a resource that you need authorization to request, is 401.

302 is not the proper response, because, in fact, the resource is not available some place else. The original URL was correct, the client simply didn't have the rights. If you follow the redirect, you do not actually get what you're looking for. You get dropped in to some ad hoc workflow that has nothing to do with the resource.

403 is incorrect. 403 is the "can't get there from here" error. You simply can't see this, I don't care who you are. Some would argue 403 and 404 are similar. The difference is simply with 403, the server is saying "yea, I have it, but you can't", whereas 404 says "I know nothing about what you're talking about." Security wonks would argue that 404 is "safer". Why tell them something they don't need to know.

The problem you are encountering has nothing to do with REST or HTTP. Your problem is trying to set up some stateful relationship between the client and server, manifested in the end via some cookie. The whole resource -> 302 -> Login page is all about user experience using the hack that's known as the Web Browser, which happens to be both, in stock form, a lousy HTTP client and a lousy REST participant.

HTTP has an authorization mechanism. The Authorization header. The user experience around it, in a generic browser, is awful. So no one uses it.

So there is not proper HTTP response (well there is, 401, but don't/can't use that). There is not proper REST response, as REST typically relies on the underlying protocol (HTTP in this case, but we've tackled that already).

So. 302 -> 200 for the login page is all she wrote. That's what you get. If you weren't using the browser, or did everything via XHR or some other custom client, this wouldn't be an issue. You'd just use Authorization header, follow the HTTP protocol, and leverage a scheme like either DIGEST or what AWS uses, and be done. Then you can use the appropriate standards to answer questions like these.