<p>Having said that I really don't see how this can happen, because the rails code is:</p>

<div class="highlight"><pre>    <span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">call</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">env</span><span class="p">)</span>
      <span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">env</span><span class="o">[</span><span class="s2">"REQUEST_METHOD"</span><span class="o">]</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="s2">"HEAD"</span>
        <span class="n">env</span><span class="o">[</span><span class="s2">"REQUEST_METHOD"</span><span class="o">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"GET"</span>
        <span class="n">env</span><span class="o">[</span><span class="s2">"rack.methodoverride.original_method"</span><span class="o">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"HEAD"</span>
        <span class="n">status</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">headers</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="vi">@app</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">call</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">env</span><span class="p">)</span>
        <span class="o">[</span><span class="n">status</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">headers</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="o">[]]</span>
      <span class="k">else</span>
        <span class="vi">@app</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">call</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">env</span><span class="p">)</span>
      <span class="k">end</span>
    <span class="k">end</span>
</pre></div>

<p>which clearly preserves headers and discards the body.</p>

<p>I also don't actually see what you describe as I see no <code>Content-Length</code> header at all in the <code>HEAD</code> case - maybe apache is discarding it?</p>

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