URI Too Long
Production Risk
Low. Most browsers and servers have very high limits (often 8KB or more), so this error is rare in normal operation. If it occurs, it almost always points to a client-side bug.
The URI requested by the client is longer than the server is willing to interpret. This is a rare condition which is only likely to occur when a client has improperly converted a POST request to a GET request with long query information.
- 1A client passes a huge amount of data in the query parameters of a GET request.
- 2A redirect loop accidentally creates a progressively longer and longer URL.
- 3A client is trying to exploit a potential buffer overflow vulnerability.
A search form incorrectly uses a GET request, placing many kilobytes of filter data into the URL's query string.
GET /search?q=... (imagine several kilobytes of data here)
expected output
HTTP/1.1 414 URI Too Long
Fix 1
Use POST for Large Data
WHEN Sending complex or large amounts of data to the server.
Change the client to send the data in the request body using a POST request instead of in the URL.
Why this works
Client-Side Correction
Fix 2
Increase Server's URI Limit
WHEN You control the server and long URIs are unavoidable (and safe).
// Nginx example in nginx.conf large_client_header_buffers 4 16k;
Why this works
Server Configuration
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