Default configuration: who replies with a "403 Forbidden" document?

[Daniele Imbrogino <d.imbrogino@xxxxxxxxx>]

I've just downloaded and installed Apache 2.4.3 on Ubuntu 12.04 for didactical purposes.

I used the default configuration provided with ./configure and I edited the httpd.conf ( /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf ) ONLY adding  an "order" directive in a directory block

<Directory "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs">

   

   #Other default directives

   Order Allow,Deny

   Allow from all

   Deny from 192.168.1.3

</Directory>

Then I restarted the server and it worked as I guessed: the requests from 192.168.1.3 received a "403 Forbidden" response.

But why the client on 192.168.1.3 receives also a (very basic) HTML page explaining the error, if I don't have any ErrorDocument directive?

(and the few present in httpd.conf by default are commented)

P.S. I don't attach httpd.conf because it's the default one, except for the three lines added above. If it's necessary, I'll attach it.