Hello and thank you for stopping by! This article is intended for those who would like to understand more about Upic Solutions Custom ePledge Error Pages.

What are Custom Error Pages?

An error page is used when ePledge runs into an issue and then displays information that may assist in troubleshooting, how to handle the error, potentially who to contact and any special branding a United Way may wish to implement. Using the default box error pages provided by Andar/ePledge do not include many of these items and lack specific information about Upic Solutions Hosting.

Why are Custom Error Pages Important?

• Security
  • Hiding key aspects of the hosting environment that can be exploited which shows up in penetration testing and audits.
    
    • Removes Tomcat specific error pages.
    • Removes references about Andar as the application when certain errors are displayed.
• Troubleshooting
  • This is a balancing act with security but providing enough information for faster troubleshooting.
• Look & Feel
  • Branding the error pages to United Way standards.

Understanding the implementation of Custom Error Pages

When looking at the general layout of the infrastructure used to host ePledge there are three locations in which an error can happen and different error-handling scenarios.

• Firewall / Load balancer
• Web front end
• Tomcat

Scenario 1 - Failure on Tomcat

When a failure happens at this level, some basic information is provided if Tomcat fails to respond; no actual error is provided to the end user. This is where most of the failures will happen.

Scenario 2 - Failure on the Web front end

Whenever a failure happens on Tomcat these errors or lack thereof can be intercepted by the web front end and then provide a custom error page that provides more information to the end user. Upic Solution's current implementation of custom error handling resides at this level.

Scenario 3 - Failure on Firewall / Load balancer

Currently no custom error pages are available at this level which would only show up when the Web front end is not able to respond. The error typically displayed is 503 bad gateway. If the Firewall / Load balancer becomes unresponsive then the end user would get a site not responding message in their browser.

Examples of Error Pages

Andar/ePledge current/default error pages

404 - Not Found

500 - server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request

503 - Gateway timed out (epledge is unable to respond due to resource issues)

Default error pages provided by Upic Solutions implemented on the web front end.

4xx Error - 404 Not Found

5xx Error - 500 server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request

General Errors - 503 Gateway timed out (epledge is unable to respond due to resource issues)

Can I customize these error pages?

Absolutely! These error pages can be customized to suit your United Way's needs better. There are several requirements that must be adhered to and we ask that you keep these pages as minimal as possible.

In order to customize the error pages the responsibility is yours to make the necessary changes. Upic Solutions can help but there will be charges associated with this work.

Requirements

Required Error Page File Names

• 4xx.html
• 5xx.html
• Error.html

Other files used

• Just about any file can be referenced via each of the HTML files. In order to do this you must use the relative path of /static/<YourSite>/<File>
• Graphics
  • Upic utilizes uw.png as the logo displayed on each of the Error Pages
• JavaScript
  • Upic utilizes main.js as a script referenced by each of the Error Pages

Do you have an example of what I can do?

Please take a look at the attached DefaultErrorTemplates.zip file for examples of what can be done.

How do I submit customization's?

Please open a new ticket providing the files customized in a ZIP format. Please note that this time is billable.

Why is the error page not displaying troubleshooting information?

If a browser has additional security extensions installed such as uBlock Origin they will need to disable the extension or set your eplege site into the allow list. The information lookup is done via a 3rd party service https://ipify.org and this can be sometimes blocked since its a secondary HTTP call to an external site.