Render a 403 when showing an access denied message

When we want to show an access denied message to a user, we don't have
to hide the resource's existence.

So in that case we render a 403, this 403 is not handled by nginx on
omnibus installs, making sure the message is visible to the user.

app/controllers/application_controller.rb

@@ -130,12 +130,17 @@ class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
   end
 
   def access_denied!(message = nil)
+    # If we display a custom access denied message to the user, we don't want to
+    # hide existence of the resource, rather tell them they cannot access it using
+    # the provided message
+    status = message.present? ? :forbidden : :not_found
+
     respond_to do |format|
-      format.any { head :not_found }
+      format.any { head status }
       format.html do
         render "errors/access_denied",
                layout: "errors",
-               status: 404,
+               status: status,
                locals: { message: message }
       end
     end

spec/controllers/application_controller_spec.rb

@@ -477,4 +477,28 @@ describe ApplicationController do
       end
     end
   end
+
+  describe '#access_denied' do
+    controller(described_class) do
+      def index
+        access_denied!(params[:message])
+      end
+    end
+
+    before do
+      sign_in user
+    end
+
+    it 'renders a 404 without a message' do
+      get :index
+
+      expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(404)
+    end
+
+    it 'renders a 403 when a message is passed to access denied' do
+      get :index, message: 'None shall pass'
+
+      expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(403)
+    end
+  end
 end

spec/controllers/concerns/controller_with_cross_project_access_check_spec.rb

@@ -43,13 +43,13 @@ describe ControllerWithCrossProjectAccessCheck do
         end
       end
 
-      it 'renders a 404 with trying to access a cross project page' do
+      it 'renders a 403 with trying to access a cross project page' do
         message = "This page is unavailable because you are not allowed to read "\
                   "information across multiple projects."
 
         get :index
 
-        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(404)
+        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(403)
         expect(response.body).to match(/#{message}/)
       end
 
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ describe ControllerWithCrossProjectAccessCheck do
 
         get :index
 
-        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(404)
+        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(403)
       end
 
       it 'is executed when the `unless` condition returns true' do
@@ -127,19 +127,19 @@ describe ControllerWithCrossProjectAccessCheck do
 
         get :index
 
-        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(404)
+        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(403)
       end
 
       it 'does not skip the check on an action that is not skipped' do
         get :show, id: 'hello'
 
-        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(404)
+        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(403)
       end
 
       it 'does not skip the check on an action that was not defined to skip' do
         get :edit, id: 'hello'
 
-        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(404)
+        expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(403)
       end
     end
   end

spec/controllers/search_controller_spec.rb

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ describe SearchController do
     it 'still blocks searches without a project_id' do
       get :show, search: 'hello'
 
-      expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(404)
+      expect(response).to have_gitlab_http_status(403)
     end
 
     it 'allows searches with a project_id' do