Mailing List Archive

referer header field too long?
Hi
We have a number of Apache HTTP servers installed all with version
2.0.54.
Lately we have seen a number of "400 Bad Request" in the error logs, and
after a lot of testing we have found that this happens then the
"Referer" HTTP header field in the request contains a URL that it more
than 200 characters long.
We have searched the web and apache web site without finding anything
about this.
Can someone confirm this and tell us how to work around it? We cannot
easily replace the servers, so we would prefer another solution... but
if no such exist we would like to know whether this has been corrected
in a later version of the Apache server? We are not interested in the
referer field, so it would be okay if Apache could just ignore it.
Thanks a lot!
Best regards,
Peter

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Re: referer header field too long? [ In reply to ]
On 7/24/06, Peter Posselt Vestergaard <PPV@milestone.dk> wrote:
> Hi
> We have a number of Apache HTTP servers installed all with version
> 2.0.54.
> Lately we have seen a number of "400 Bad Request" in the error logs, and
> after a lot of testing we have found that this happens then the
> "Referer" HTTP header field in the request contains a URL that it more
> than 200 characters long.
> We have searched the web and apache web site without finding anything
> about this.
> Can someone confirm this and tell us how to work around it? We cannot
> easily replace the servers, so we would prefer another solution... but
> if no such exist we would like to know whether this has been corrected
> in a later version of the Apache server? We are not interested in the
> referer field, so it would be okay if Apache could just ignore it.

200 characters would be a very unusual limit. You can check
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#limitrequestfieldsize
but I suspect the problem may be elsewhere, such as an intermediate proxy.

Joshua.

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RE: referer header field too long? [ In reply to ]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jslive@gmail.com [mailto:jslive@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
> Joshua Slive
> Sent: 24. juli 2006 17:30
> To: users@httpd.apache.org
> Subject: Re: [users@httpd] referer header field too long?
>
> On 7/24/06, Peter Posselt Vestergaard <PPV@milestone.dk> wrote:
> > Hi
> > We have a number of Apache HTTP servers installed all with version
> > 2.0.54.
> > Lately we have seen a number of "400 Bad Request" in the
> error logs, and
> > after a lot of testing we have found that this happens then the
> > "Referer" HTTP header field in the request contains a URL
> that it more
> > than 200 characters long.
> > We have searched the web and apache web site without
> finding anything
> > about this.
> > Can someone confirm this and tell us how to work around it?
> We cannot
> > easily replace the servers, so we would prefer another
> solution... but
> > if no such exist we would like to know whether this has
> been corrected
> > in a later version of the Apache server? We are not
> interested in the
> > referer field, so it would be okay if Apache could just ignore it.
>
> 200 characters would be a very unusual limit. You can check
> http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#limitrequestfieldsize
> but I suspect the problem may be elsewhere, such as an
> intermediate proxy.
>
> Joshua.
>
Thanks for your answer.
However we have not set that setting and I am entirely sure that no
proxy is in between. We first saw the error on a customer setup, but
have been able to reproduce the problem on our local setup in which we
know that no proxy is in between.
/Peter

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RE: referer header field too long? [ In reply to ]
Hi again
Just to be sure I checked if the limitrequestfieldsize was in fact set
(why didn't I do that before replying?) and found that it was indeed -
one of my colleagues had done that.
I apologize for bothering you, list, and thanks a lot for your help,
Joshua!
Best regards,
Peter

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Posselt Vestergaard [mailto:PPV@MILESTONE.DK]
> Sent: 25. juli 2006 07:35
> To: users@httpd.apache.org
> Subject: RE: [users@httpd] referer header field too long?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: jslive@gmail.com [mailto:jslive@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
> > Joshua Slive
> > Sent: 24. juli 2006 17:30
> > To: users@httpd.apache.org
> > Subject: Re: [users@httpd] referer header field too long?
> >
> > On 7/24/06, Peter Posselt Vestergaard <PPV@milestone.dk> wrote:
> > > Hi
> > > We have a number of Apache HTTP servers installed all with version
> > > 2.0.54.
> > > Lately we have seen a number of "400 Bad Request" in the
> > error logs, and
> > > after a lot of testing we have found that this happens then the
> > > "Referer" HTTP header field in the request contains a URL
> > that it more
> > > than 200 characters long.
> > > We have searched the web and apache web site without
> > finding anything
> > > about this.
> > > Can someone confirm this and tell us how to work around it?
> > We cannot
> > > easily replace the servers, so we would prefer another
> > solution... but
> > > if no such exist we would like to know whether this has
> > been corrected
> > > in a later version of the Apache server? We are not
> > interested in the
> > > referer field, so it would be okay if Apache could just ignore it.
> >
> > 200 characters would be a very unusual limit. You can check
> > http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#limitrequestfieldsize
> > but I suspect the problem may be elsewhere, such as an
> > intermediate proxy.
> >
> > Joshua.
> >
> Thanks for your answer.
> However we have not set that setting and I am entirely sure that no
> proxy is in between. We first saw the error on a customer setup, but
> have been able to reproduce the problem on our local setup in which we
> know that no proxy is in between.
> /Peter
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP
> Server Project.
> See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info.
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>
>

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Re: referer header field too long? [ In reply to ]
On 7/25/06, Peter Posselt Vestergaard <PPV@milestone.dk> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: jslive@gmail.com [mailto:jslive@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
> > Joshua Slive
> > Sent: 24. juli 2006 17:30
> > To: users@httpd.apache.org
> > Subject: Re: [users@httpd] referer header field too long?
> >
> > On 7/24/06, Peter Posselt Vestergaard <PPV@milestone.dk> wrote:
> > > Hi
> > > We have a number of Apache HTTP servers installed all with version
> > > 2.0.54.
> > > Lately we have seen a number of "400 Bad Request" in the
> > error logs, and
> > > after a lot of testing we have found that this happens then the
> > > "Referer" HTTP header field in the request contains a URL
> > that it more
> > > than 200 characters long.
> > > We have searched the web and apache web site without
> > finding anything
> > > about this.
> > > Can someone confirm this and tell us how to work around it?
> > We cannot
> > > easily replace the servers, so we would prefer another
> > solution... but
> > > if no such exist we would like to know whether this has
> > been corrected
> > > in a later version of the Apache server? We are not
> > interested in the
> > > referer field, so it would be okay if Apache could just ignore it.
> >
> > 200 characters would be a very unusual limit. You can check
> > http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#limitrequestfieldsize
> > but I suspect the problem may be elsewhere, such as an
> > intermediate proxy.
> >
> > Joshua.
> >
> Thanks for your answer.
> However we have not set that setting and I am entirely sure that no
> proxy is in between. We first saw the error on a customer setup, but
> have been able to reproduce the problem on our local setup in which we
> know that no proxy is in between.

I would look for something else other than the length of the Referer.
What does the apache error log say?

Joshua.

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