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July 22, 2009
Question

Why can't Max Size of Post Data be increased?

  • July 22, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 971 views

We need to do a CFFILE upload of 1 – 3 GB videos and are having troubles.

(I know this is crazy, but FTP, network mapped drives, etc. aren’t going to leave an audit trail like an HTML form will for when people have to upload/update/delete bus incident videos.)

I can't increase the Max size of post data to even 2048MB without people getting "500" errors who are trying to upload small gifs or pdfs.  If I move it above 2047MB, no one can upload anything.

Our setup:

CF Enterprise 8.0.1 with Hot Fix 2

2 - Win Servers 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 using replication, load balancing, and MS virtual machine.

CF is clustered so the Java class paths begin with

C:/JRun4/servers/HSWSD0C1O/cfusion.ear/cfusion.war/WEB-INF/...

CF Admin settings:

Max size of post data = 2047MB

Request throttle threshold = 4MB

Request Throttle Memory = 3072MB

Setting of 10 simultaneous requests.

Restarted CF services after Hotfix 2 install.

On the Application.cfm page I put

  applicationtimeout="#CreateTimeSpan(0,4,0,0)#"

Basic code for uploading:

<!--- upload file and get results --->

   <cffile action="upload"

      filefield="file"

      destination="#fileDirectory#"

      nameconflict="error"

      result="uploadResult">

This code works for small files IF I don't raise the max size of post data above 2047MB, which means we'll never get those videos up.

I've been fighting with this for weeks.  Any ideas?

Thanks!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    ilssac
    Inspiring
    July 22, 2009

    First thought is that Web Servers can impose their own upload throttles.  You should check the documentation of your web server as well.

    Secondly

    I know this is crazy, but FTP, network mapped drives, etc. aren’t going
    to leave an audit trail like an HTML form will for when people have to
    upload/update/delete bus incident videos

    What wouldn't FTP leave an audit trail?  FTP communication can leave just as much, if not more, of an audit trail as HTTP communications.

    Network mapped drives, I'm not so sure about, but I imagine there are ways to audit these as well.  But then if you can use network mapped drives, you must be working with a well defined set of users all of which belong to a well defined network domain.

    P.S.  Also make sure that the max post size limits fit inside the overall limits of jvm memory.  Trying to upload a file larger then the memory it can fit in sounds like a likely source of problems.

    July 22, 2009

    Thank you for replying!  By audit trail, I should have been more explicit.  We have to track usernames and times of who uploaded, updated, deleted the videos, and these users also have to leave comments as to why they did so.

    I don't have any throttles set in IIS.  I'm wondering if it has to do with clustering CF; it's like I never installed Hotfix 2 although the update is listed in the CF Admin.  Very frustrating.  I don't have a settings page in CF Admin for JVM heap size.

    ilssac
    Inspiring
    July 22, 2009

    IIS comes configured with upload throttles out of the box.  I don't have a link to the Microsoft knowledge base article, but I have read about IIS throttles.

    I do not use a clustered CF environement, but we use multi-home here.  I know I have to apply hotfixes to each and every instance of ColdFusion in the multi-home configuration, not just the main instance.  I presume this also applies to clustered instances.

    We have to track usernames and times of who uploaded, updated, deleted
    the videos, and these users also have to leave comments as to why they
    did so.

    FTP can do much, if not all of that.  For sure it would be possible to do all of that with a combonation of an HTTP page combined with FTP links.  FTP don't have to be anomyous dump boxes just because that is how most people leave the default configuraitons.