Re: [users@httpd] undocumented POST size limit?

Anthony DiSante <tech.one@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 10 Feb 2006 11:24:06 -0500

The language is Perl.  I realize that FTP is the more traditional solution 

to this problem, but 1) it's not me who wants to send these massive files, 

it's a client of mine (I am the author of the uploader he's using), and 2) 

I'd still like to know what the technical limitations of the 

protocol/software are for files of this size.

--
Anthony DiSante
Encodable Industries
http://encodable.com/

httpd2@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

What script language are you using to process the uploaded 

file? You may be better off using pure ftp for file uploads 

of that size.

HTH

Keith

In theory, theory and practice are the same;

In practice they are not. 

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Anthony DiSante wrote:

To: users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Anthony DiSante <tech.one@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [users@httpd] undocumented POST size limit?

Hello,

I'm running Apache 2.0.54 on a Linux system here.  Across my LAN, I can
upload a 1.4GB file to it via POST with a CGI script, no problem.  But if
I try to upload a 2.1GB file, the upload never starts; the server refuses
it.

I checked the server's access log to see what was going on.  When the
client was Internet Explorer, the access log shows just a single line:

192.168.1.10 - - [10/Feb/2006:06:58:22 -0500] "POST
/cgi-bin/upload/filechucker.cgi?&serial=1182736... HTTP/1.1" 413 428
"http://192.168.1.5/cgi-bin/upload/filechucker.cgi"; "Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

As you can see, the response code is 413, which is "Request Entity Too
Large".  And the client receives an error page in the browser.

When the client is Firefox, however, the request is never logged at all,
and no error is sent to the browser -- it just sits there as though you'd
never attempted to start the upload in the first place.

In both cases, though, the upload never even begins.  I'm trying to figure
out why this is.  The Apache docs mention a LimitRequestBody directive
which would seem to be it, except that it defaults to 0, i.e. unlimited.
And even when I explicitly set it to 0 in my Apache config, I get the same
behavior.

Can anyone else confirm this behavior, or report that they actually CAN
upload a file >2GB?  Or is there some other setting that could be limiting
the size of POST data?

Thanks,

--
Anthony DiSante
Encodable Industries
http://encodable.com/

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