Description of problem:

When an HTTP request is sent to apache, if one specifies the content-length request header of X bytes and server doesn't receive X number of bytes within timeout period, 500 Internal Server Error is returned to the client by apache. 

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
httpd-2.2.15-15.el6_2.1.x86_64

How reproducible:

Setting up mod_dav on httpd to handle PUTs and called a PUT request through curl with a Content-Length header that mismatches the actual size of the PUT content. 

curl -k -v -i virtual1\\user1:test1 -H "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8" -H "Content-Length: 100" --data-binary 'test data' -X PUT "https://hostname/page"

Actual results:

It provides a 500 error code.

Expected results:

408 timeout code.

Additional info:

The reaction we get in this event (timing out before httpd receives the designated content-length) appears to depend on the module(s) ultimately used to serve that request.  In the instance of the mod_dav reproducer, the mod_dav module likely just sees it didn't get all the expected content and so can't successfully put the file and so 500s.  mod_dav likely doesn't specifically know that it doesn't get that content because httpd timed out the connection with the client and so it just provides a 500 for the mod_dav error putting that file, trumping any potential 408 provided instead at the base httpd level for such a timeout.