nginx 444 No Response

What nginx 444 means

return 444; in an nginx config drops the connection immediately, without sending headers. It is used to silently reject unwanted traffic, such as requests with an unknown Host header or from scanners. Clients never actually receive 444; they see an empty reply or a connection reset.

444 isn’t defined in any HTTP standard. It is specific to nginx, so other servers and proxies won’t use it.

Retrying

No. Fix the request first; sending it again unchanged will get the same response.

How to return 444

# Drop requests for unknown host names
server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    server_name _;
    return 444;
}

Related status codes

• 499 Client Closed Request : Logged by nginx when the client disconnects before the server responds.
• 403 Forbidden : The server understood the request but refuses to authorize it.
• 400 Bad Request : The server can’t process the request because it is malformed.

Other 4xx status codes

400 Bad Request · 401 Unauthorized · 402 Payment Required · 403 Forbidden · 404 Not Found · 405 Method Not Allowed · 406 Not Acceptable · 407 Proxy Authentication Required · 408 Request Timeout · 409 Conflict · 410 Gone · 411 Length Required · 412 Precondition Failed · 413 Content Too Large · 414 URI Too Long · 415 Unsupported Media Type · 416 Range Not Satisfiable · 417 Expectation Failed · 418 I’m a Teapot · 421 Misdirected Request · 422 Unprocessable Content · 423 Locked · 424 Failed Dependency · 425 Too Early · 426 Upgrade Required · 428 Precondition Required · 429 Too Many Requests · 431 Request Header Fields Too Large · 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons · 499 Client Closed Request

See the full list of HTTP status codes.

Sources

• nginx docs: ngx_http_rewrite_module (return)

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