[ejames]

HTTP status 418 is an "official" status code released in the traditional yearly April Fool's Day paper[1] of the Internet Engineering Task Force. It was the joke for 1998.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Text_Coffee_Pot_Control_P...

[dandelany]

True, but the spec clearly states that the 418 code is to be used only when "the HTCPCP server is a teapot; the resulting entity may be short and stout."

[StavrosK]

How does Varnish know the backend server is not a teapot? It's a blatant violation of the standard to strip it out.