Create a custom error page to redirect to instead of generic AccessDenied.aspx?

Question

When a user has not been given permissions to a particular site they receive the ugly "Error: Access Denied" page.

Is it possible to capture this on one particular team site (via custom webpart) and redirect the user to a custom access denied page that displays a more friendlier message (ex: "Thanks for your interest in [my company's team site]. Access has been limited at this time to physicians, fellows, physician extenders, clinical pharmacists, and nurses who are involved in patient care. If you need access for direct patient care and you have received this message, please contact info@mycompany.com".

I found examples using SPSecurity.CatchAccessDeniedException, but it looks like user is being redirected to AccessDenied.aspx before the code gets executed. I placed the code in Page_PreRender()

Answer 1

Courtesy of Yaroslav Pentsarsky - EndUserSharePoint.com

1. First you can copy an existing page from the Template/Layouts, in our case we'll use AccessDenied.aspx. You can give it any name. If you’re using a Visual Studio solution simply add this new file to your solution structure underLayouts mapped folder.

2. Make any desired changes to the newly created page. If you made a copy of an existing page, remember that it’s referencing the original assembly and you still need to follow the structure outlined in the page placeholders to avoid the page erroring out. Alternately, you can create your own page in VS2010 which can reference its own assembly.

3. Assuming the page has been deployed to the layouts folder. Execute the following PowerShell to set it as a default page for the role, in our case AccessDenied page role.

   PS C:\Users\Administrator> $site = get-spsite "http://intranet.contoso.com"

   PS C:\Users\Administrator> $webApp = $site.WebApplication

   PS C:\Users\Administrator> $webapp.UpdateMappedPage(1, "/_layouts/AccessDeniedNew.aspx")

   True

   PS C:\Users\Administrator> $webapp.Update()

   PS C:\Users\Administrator>

In here, the value of “1″ in UpdateMappedPage, specifies a reference to an enumeration value for other page roles available, see SPCustomPage Microsoft reference for more info.

• We’re set. Since we’re testing AccessDenied page, I’m going to log in as a reader and access “Site collection administrators” page by URL.s a result I am getting my customized AccessDenied page.

NOTE: The custom page must always be hosted in _layouts, otherwise the UpdateMappedPage will fail. If you need to show your content page as a result – you can execute a redirect from the custom page in _layouts to your content page.

Answer 2

As an alternate you can use DoesUserHavePermissions property of spweb (SPSecuribleObject) and redirect to another page through code.