A 308 Permanent Redirect message is an HTTP response status code indicating that the requested resource has been permanently moved to another URI, as indicated by the special Location header returned within the response. The 308 Permanent Redirect code was added to the HTTP standard relatively recently in April 2015, as detailed in the RFC7538 specification document for the 308 status code. As written in the RFC specification, the 308 Permanent Redirect code was necessary to fill in the gap left with similar codes of 301, 302, and 307.
There are dozens of possible HTTP status codes used to represent the complex relationship between the client, a web application, a web server, and the multitude of third-party web services that may be in use, so determining the cause of a particular HTTP response status code can be difficult. Since there are so many potential codes, each of which represents a completely different status or event, it can be difficult to differentiate between many of them and determine the exact cause of such errors, including the 308 Permanent Redirect response code.
Throughout this article we'll explore the 308 Permanent Redirect code by looking at a handful of troubleshooting tips. We'll also examine a few useful and easy to implement fixes for common problems that could be causing 308 codes to appear in your own web application. Let's get down to it!
The Problem is Server-Side
All HTTP response status codes within the 3xx category are considered redirection messages. These codes indicate to the user agent (i.e. your web browser) that an additional action is required in order to complete the request and access the desired resource. The 3xx response code category is distinctly different from the 5xx codes category, which encompasses server error messages. For example, the 503 Service Unavailable error we explored a late last year indicates that a server is temporarily unavailable, or is unable to handle the request for some reason. Thus, while a 5xx category code indicates an actual problem has occurred on a server, a 3xx category code, such as 308 Permanent Redirect, is rarely indicative of an actual problem -- it merely occurs due to the server's behavior or configuration, but is not indicative of an error or bug on the server.
The 308 Permanent Redirect code is similar to the 301 Moved Permanently code we explore in our 301 Moved Permanently: What It Is and How to Fix It article. As discussed in that post, the RFC1945 HTTP/1.0 specification document explicitly states that the 301 code should not necessarily inform user agents (i.e. browsers) to automatically redirect POST HTTP method requests to GET HTTP method requests. However, many user agents did erroneously change POST requests to GET redirect requests, which led to unintentional problems.
To handle this explicit allowance or denial of changing POST requests to GET requests the HTTP standards included the following codes:
- 301 Moved Permanently: The resource has been permanently moved and request method conversion from
POSTtoGETis allowed. - 307 Temporary Redirect: The resource has been temporarily moved and request method conversion from
POSTtoGETis forbidden. - 302 Found: The resource has been temporarily moved and request method conversion from
POSTtoGETis allowed.
As you can see, this set of three HTTP status codes is missing a code that indicates a permanent redirect that forbids POST to GET conversion. This is the exact role that the 308 Permanent Redirect status code fulfills.
The appearance of a 308 Permanent Redirect is usually not something that requires much user intervention. All modern browsers will automatically detect the 308 Permanent Redirect response code and process the redirection action to the new URI automatically. The server sending a 308 code will also include a special Location header as part of the response it sends to the client. This Location header indicates the new URI where the requested resource can be found. For example, if an HTTP POST method request is sent by the client as an attempt to login at the https://airbrake.io URL, the web server may be configured to redirect this POST request to a different URI, such as https://airbrake.io/login. In this scenario, the server may respond with a 308 Permanent Redirect code and include the Location: https://airbrake.io/login header in the response. This informs the user agent (browser) that the POST request data (login info) was received by the server, but the resource has been permanently moved to the Location header URI of https://airbrake.io/login.
It's also important to distinguish the purpose and use-cases of the 308 Permanent Redirect response code from many seemingly similar 3xx codes, such as the 307 Temporary Redirect we looked at in the past. The 307 Temporary Redirect code informs the client that the passed Location URI is only a temporary resource, and that all future requests should continue to access the originally requested URI. On the other hand, the 308 Permanent Redirect message is permanent and indicates that the passed Location URI should be used for future (identical) requests.
Additionally, since the 308 Permanent Redirect indicates that something has gone wrong within the server of your application, we can largely disregard the client side of things. If you're trying to diagnose an issue with your own application, you can immediately ignore most client-side code and components, such as HTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), client-side JavaScript, and so forth. This doesn't apply solely to web sites, either. Many smart phone apps that have a modern looking user interface are actually powered by a normal web application behind the scenes; one that is simply hidden from the user. If you're using such an application and a 308 Permanent Redirect occurs, the issue isn't going to be related to the app installed on your phone or local testing device. Instead, it will be something on the server-side, which is performing most of the logic and processing behind the scenes, outside the purview of the local interface presented to the user.
If your application is generating unexpected 308 Permanent Redirect response codes there are a number of steps you can take to diagnose the problem, so we'll explore a few potential work around below.
Start With a Thorough Application Backup
As with anything, it's better to have played it safe at the start than to screw something up and come to regret it later on down the road. As such, it is critical that you perform a full backup of your application, database, and so forth, before attempting any fixes or changes to the system. Even better, if you have the capability, create a complete copy of the application onto a secondary staging server that isn't "live," or isn't otherwise active and available to the public. This will give you a clean testing ground with which to test all potential fixes to resolve the issue, without threatening the security or sanctity of your live application.
Diagnosing a 308 Permanent Redirect Response Code
A 308 Permanent Redirect response code indicates that the requested resource has been permanently moved to the new URI specified in the Location response header. However, the appearance of this error itself may be erroneous, as it's entirely possible that the server is misconfigured, which could cause it to improperly respond with 308 Permanent Redirect codes, instead of the standard and expected 200 OK code seen for most successful requests. Thus, a large part of diagnosing the issue will be going through the process of double-checking what resources/URLs are generating 308 Permanent Redirect response codes and determining if these codes are appropriate or not.
If your application is responding with 308 Permanent Redirect codes that it should not be issuing, this is a problem that many other visitors may be experiencing as well, dramatically hindering your application's ability to service users. We'll go over some troubleshooting tips and tricks to help you try to resolve this issue. If nothing here works, don't forget to try Googling for the answer. Search for specific terms related to your issue, such as the name of your application's CMS or web server software, along with 308 Permanent Redirect. Chances are you'll find others who have experienced this issue and have (hopefully) found a solution.
Troubleshooting on the Server-Side
Here are some additional tips to help you troubleshoot what might be causing the 308 Permanent Redirect to appear on the server-side of things:
Confirm Your Server Configuration
Your application is likely running on a server that is using one of the two most popular web server softwares, Apache or nginx. At the time of publication, both of these web servers make up over 84% of the world's web server software! Thus, one of the first steps you can take to determine what might be causing these 308 Permanent Redirect response codes is to check the configuration files for your web server software for unintentional redirect instructions.
To determine which web server your application is using you'll want to look for a key file. If your web server is Apache then look for an .htaccess file within the root directory of your website file system. For example, if your application is on a shared host you'll likely have a username associated with the hosting account. In such a case, the application root directory is typically found at the path of /home/<username>/public_html/, so the .htaccess file would be at /home/<username>/public_html/.htaccess.
If you located the .htaccess file then open it in a text editor and look for lines that use RewriteXXX directives, which are part of the mod_rewrite module in Apache. Covering exactly how these rules work is well beyond the scope of this article, however, the basic concept is that a RewriteCond directive defines a text-based pattern that will be matched against entered URLs. If a matching URL is requested by a visitor to the site, the RewriteRule directive that follows one or more RewriteCond directives is used to perform the actual redirection of the request to the appropriate URL.
For example, here is a simple RewriteCond and RewriteRule combination that matches all incoming requests to airbrake.io using the HTTP POST method, and redirecting them to https://airbrake.io/login via a 308 Permanent Redirect response:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^airbrake.io$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://airbrake.io/login$1 [R=308]
Notice the extra flag at the end of the RewriteRule, which explicitly states that the response code should be 308, indicating to user agents that the request should be repeated to the specified URI, but while retaining the original HTTP method (POST, in this case). Thus, if you find any strange RewriteCond or RewriteRule directives in the .htaccess file that don't seem to belong, try temporarily commenting them out (using the # character prefix) and restarting your web server to see if this resolves the issue.
On the other hand, if your server is running on nginx, you'll need to look for a completely different configuration file. By default this file is named nginx.conf and is located in one of a few common directories: /usr/local/nginx/conf, /etc/nginx, or /usr/local/etc/nginx. Once located, open nginx.conf in a text editor and look for return or rewrite directives that are using the 308 response code flag. For example, here is a simple block directive (i.e. a named set of directives) that configures a virtual server by creating a redirection from airbrake.io to airbrake.io/login for POST HTTP method requests:
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name airbrake.io;
if ($request_method = POST) {
return 308 https://airbrake.io/login$request_uri;
}
}
Return directives in nginx are similar to the RewriteCond and RewriteRule directives found in Apache, as they tend to contain more complex text-based patterns for searching. Either way, look through your nginx.conf file for any abnormal return or rewrite directives that include the 308 flag. Comment out any abnormalities before restarting the server to see if the issue was resolved.
Scour the Logs
Nearly every web application will keep some form of server-side logs. Application logs are typically the history of what the application did, such as which pages were requested, which servers it connected to, which database results it provides, and so forth. Server logs are related to the actual hardware that is running the application, and will often provide details about the health and status of all connected services, or even just the server itself. Google "logs [PLATFORM_NAME]" if you're using a CMS, or "logs [PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE]" and "logs [OPERATING_SYSTEM]" if you're running a custom application, to get more information on finding the logs in question.
Debug Your Application Code
If all else fails, it may be that a problem in some custom code within your application is causing the issue. Try to diagnose where the issue may be coming from through manually debugging your application, along with parsing through application and server logs. Ideally, make a copy of the entire application to a local development machine and perform a step-by-step debug process, which will allow you to recreate the exact scenario in which the 308 Permanent Redirect occurred and view the application code at the moment something goes wrong.
No matter what the cause, the appearance of a 308 Permanent Redirect within your own web application is a strong indication that you may need an error management tool to help you automatically detect such errors in the future. The best of these tools can even alert you and your team immediately when an error occurs. Airbrake's error monitoring software provides real-time error monitoring and automatic exception reporting for all your development projects. Airbrake's state of the art web dashboard ensures you receive round-the-clock status updates on your application's health and error rates. No matter what you're working on, Airbrake easily integrates with all the most popular languages and frameworks. Plus, Airbrake makes it easy to customize exception parameters, while giving you complete control of the active error filter system, so you only gather the errors that matter most.
Check out Airbrake's error monitoring software today and see for yourself why so many of the world's best engineering teams use Airbrake to revolutionize their exception handling practices!