Can I return a 404 for a file that is also the ErrorDocument?

[David Wakelin <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have created a file 404.html to act as my 404 page that is returned by ErrorDocument:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html

This works fine, except when accessing 404.html directly, which returns a status code of 200

I've attempted a RewriteRule like so:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html
RewriteRule "404\.html" - [R=404]

However, this now returns an error instead of my 404.html doc:

The requested URL /does-not-exist.html was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

How can I return a status of 404 for the 404.html document itself?

I have seen solutions using PHP, but I am NOT using PHP and have no means to do so (I don't use mpm_prefork and I will not setup and run php-fpm just for a status code header)

Kind Regards

David Wakelin

www.aplpackaging.co.uk   david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx   01903 202 333