What is the maximum length of $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']? [duplicate] - php
What is the maximum length of a URL for each browser?
Is a maximum URL length part of the HTTP specification?
Short answer - de facto limit of 2000 characters
If you keep URLs under 2000 characters, they'll work in virtually any combination of client and server software.
If you are targeting particular browsers, see below for more details on specific limits.
Longer answer - first, the standards...
RFC 2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP/1.1) section 3.2.1 says
The HTTP protocol does not place
any a priori limit on the length of
a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle
the URI of any resource they serve,
and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of
unbounded length if they provide
GET-based forms that could generate
such URIs. A server SHOULD return
414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a
URI is longer than the server can
handle (see section 10.4.15).
That RFC has been obsoleted by RFC7230 which is a refresh of the HTTP/1.1 specification. It contains similar language, but also goes on to suggest this:
Various ad hoc limitations on request-line length are found in
practice. It is RECOMMENDED that all HTTP senders and recipients
support, at a minimum, request-line lengths of 8000 octets.
...and the reality
That's what the standards say. For the reality, there was an article on boutell.com (link goes to Internet Archive backup) that discussed what individual browser and server implementations will support. The executive summary is:
Extremely long URLs are usually a
mistake. URLs over 2,000 characters
will not work in the most popular web
browsers. Don't use them if you intend
your site to work for the majority of
Internet users.
(Note: this is a quote from an article written in 2006, but in 2015 IE's declining usage means that longer URLs do work for the majority. However, IE still has the limitation...)
Internet Explorer's limitations...
IE8's maximum URL length is 2083 chars, and it seems IE9 has a similar limit.
I've tested IE10 and the address bar will only accept 2083 chars. You can click a URL which is longer than this, but the address bar will still only show 2083 characters of this link.
There's a nice writeup on the IE Internals blog which goes into some of the background to this.
There are mixed reports IE11 supports longer URLs - see comments below. Given some people report issues, the general advice still stands.
Search engines like URLs < 2048 chars...
Be aware that the sitemaps protocol, which allows a site to inform search engines about available pages, has a limit of 2048 characters in a URL. If you intend to use sitemaps, a limit has been decided for you! (see Calin-Andrei Burloiu's answer below)
There's also some research from 2010 into the maximum URL length that search engines will crawl and index. They found the limit was 2047 chars, which appears allied to the sitemap protocol spec. However, they also found the Google SERP tool wouldn't cope with URLs longer than 1855 chars.
CDNs have limits
CDNs also impose limits on URI length, and will return a 414 Too long request when these limits are reached, for example:
Fastly 8Kb
CloudFront 8Kb
CloudFlare 16Kb
(credit to timrs2998 for providing that info in the comments)
Additional browser roundup
I tested the following against an Apache 2.4 server configured with a very large LimitRequestLine and LimitRequestFieldSize.
Browser Address bar document.location
or anchor tag
------------------------------------------
Chrome 32779 >64k
Android 8192 >64k
Firefox >64k >64k
Safari >64k >64k
IE11 2047 5120
Edge 16 2047 10240
See also this answer from Matas Vaitkevicius below.
Is this information up to date?
This is a popular question, and as the original research is ~14 years old I'll try to keep it up to date: As of Jan 2021, the advice still stands. Even though IE11 may possibly accept longer URLs, the ubiquity of older IE installations plus the search engine limitations mean staying under 2000 chars is the best general policy.
The longest URLs I came across are data URLs
Example image URL from Google image results (11747 characters)
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+Ki/cwrwvwKYxoJuKWjXJxKpuy4WNwDcr9E9EbzGumk4VClmaw8JrXPSbAC/VG0xwMuUzTdVhaod85stxxEsz5kktLCI15SrcTH4zGNhvax6d0zSk/C7tNVENS8gHAlpUtHmDjGZrgnkgXPJswyvnDifoQs2Ljp4zuADK5PQt5ZIGXPGJ0ESCO6J9t4vK9nFR1KcKVlXYiXWp0l1Reah4uU5kTCFHGspnDGoGT5LLyUWj06wzcb2nSrrPWWJBCg4GWXd3+kApcm4ysM7xP0nSS5CY5lTPAXwR8iTnuUcXHONIaVeYZhQnAz48LsCS1gCWZFG4DLYIs8mKm0v38EVItNPrJLngo08PPWYFw/I3HJJKq0o2I6Cb7Lw7Zi6qVwm4yxXtfdsjiOg+TxyDkTVmNMA27TiRhzi/tMdH1a1pWalm5MxTy0/wCpT+bv6I8zqPVLUkd2HZUT5GlFbkTJ3EzACcJkckEEA4XPhWvz3is611AViEm8cxa2Li1VQNoNx4RzbZvt5YtdUVmqWlulmzuAHUkb7g7coqWkKeWXzmYiLliLBcs7WG0xlqS2OpRT3Na4ZUlXxctLn9okWAPRe3ZCCvqklhTNJCKQXa1zcnM2G2NldX3O3krdid2UUjTmluOLAeABl0n84xeKt2c8nsz6C1Nl0tQomSJsqYciQrAsLD6S7Rs5ovKCwA5o+KqKodGDS2ZGGYZWKkeQjOOj6tcLmkaeweYJ6fmzRdrc3GDPtvHSculs6Xw5fk+V5ynu50EUzhA4S5VdQy0Mt5UxZyuRcMpASaDZh0sNoggZ7nYdT/mFF5tI92kR6/TdQKlpEiTLmYZaTCzzTL8MstvAN/AMSNT/AJhRebSPdpEel/KlR5tI95OgSed31/itP6UfuoO76/xWn9KP3UWCCAK/3fX+K0/pR+6g7vr/ABWn9KP3UWCCAK/3fX+K0/pR+6g7vr/Faf0o/dRYIIAr/d9f4rT+lH7qDu+v8Vp/Sj91FgggCv8Ad9f4rT+lH7qDu+v8Vp/Sj91FgggCv931/itP6UfuoO76/wAVp/Sj91FgggCv931/itP6UfuoO76/xWn9KP3UWCCAK+dIV/itP6UfuoS13CBOlXvJp2I2hKh2PqlW9cMtfdYVppABcIZmWInYv0j6wOuOYStYqViAJ8u53YhEWTRbDwutn/swv0zPblC6o4VKt/ASVLHkZj2kj2QrqKVZq4kYXGxgb9ttxiFTycQOQBU2ZeY/YYgskGlNM1E9g05yencOgAbI1Sap9jHLyf1eJiy4yFOPsgSJNJ6NLMsxDZl2Hy7jDvRmqM+fKE2eDIyay3znZHaV5UuWd9uVDLQmjONmiw5KWLeXaF8tob6114lSWNwMKk3PPuvHPknXB1YYXyc/07rQaGR3PT2AxNeXyisoG1wrsLsCdzZiKgNcJh2gHovYeqOoap6ckv8AIEKzTXyVwrBhhzOEjZySOqKPwlavJIrDxUsKjqrBUFgpO0gbBfmhjab3W5pkUorZ7COq0tMnrhICrfwVvn+0d8QahcK9JyESqGUQGFiLgWvYbNufkiVRaPUsCflWO4eCv2xvwcz3FujtFO1ssosFPo3CNkOJFOBlbsiZLpgd1rwsrwioaelWlL+2PY0ETdcZGBR+0PY0EKIs+kdT/mFF5tI92kZpoxlq5s8FSHlS5YXO4wM7Xv04/VGGp/zCi82ke7SG8XMTVd+Ze0/ZBd+Ze0/ZG2CANV35l7T9kF35l7T9kbYIA1XfmXtP2QXfmXtP2RtggDVd+Ze0/ZBd+Ze0/ZG2CANV35l7T9kF35l7T9kbYIA1XfmXtP2QXfmXtP2RtggDVifmXtP2QYn5l7T9kRNJaWEsWGbc3N0mEFRpac30iP2cvXFJSSLxg5FU4SaHumt4uaGwy5ahbbATyiT1xUX0bKkgyp8mXMlm9pgQXHltmLDeIuWmtDGYSxuzHeWN8umKvpCna6WDq6XIzaYrdDKcz5RcjmMUU0zTtyiRdH6O7lzkkGXcG5bYpOV3GWG+x7W3GxhnUPgmJNwkKxEuYDbYckfLI2YjPpiLo1iclFjmyW5UsN9JMW5W3qbEcwiZUUSsmFwVDDlIp2E9MaIqe1MmxjCXTTLE2sADmSPZv5+qNrTwtibCwsOoWHsjyTpEXvfqiBwXvRdMsmSoWxFr4ucnMt1xzzhM0gWlcWubTGw+u/8ACJtJrM8pWkk5LmpP5jZqOrZ1QvKrPmLMfwUuR0k9EcMnUj0scE037lU1So6iRWUj4bAzFS+f0iRn0ZmLVwgU6zJs0XyliQo8pdsgfIYx03VJLVSHCFSCrE2sQdsVzSOvTOWAXjQxQsxGHOXe2Dy74v6pu0iXogqbNOlKWQJqSZbYjblqc1vuGLn6Ilyacy7XXaPCGy/SBshNoLRxLYzfEST2xdaWVlHStlRwTlbtI1UtM3QOke2J8pAvSeeIk2fhuu4WYeQm3qJ9cbUfKJM2VnXcEoDb6Y/ytHkb9dE+QX/iL/lf7I9iSD6F1P8AmFF5tI92kN4Uan/MKLzaR7tIbxczCCCCACCCCACCCCACCCCACCCCACNNXUiWjMdwjdFd1hqiXWXuAuf66orJ0rLRVuhepaYxZjtziSKYAXMFNa1zYdMJtKa70Us4GnYmzylqz7OlRaOa7Ot7bInT7bB64q+nESxuCNljzEbxzQ6k10uYgmoxKkb1IPWDsjnusGn509mEviJUtTYzJhzJ/rdaKqLZdyomaO0gXuv0lyY725mJ3kwweVgBLbeaKlq5UOs+7MrclswLBh/2MWOqqMUdEeKOaS32E+kKs3MRJFbYxhpR7XhUk/OBdIbaxVWGUk4C5QlWGzJtnrv2xWDrZUNbDhHNlf2xYhVo0tkmHJhY9Ytfq2xTaeyTCh2gkQUU92Rqa8ktKabPcNNYsen+Aiy0ur4w7B/XRGjRbDKLJStEsiyFQ6NwQ2krG1ADGdoEEGvTIE7M1bnwttHq7QIjUk3aMsjbKJ1QpIOz/wAZ/wAIU0rWII8Ell+rYr/yMo6oENETXH8Qv/EX/LMgjVrY/wAiv/EHsmQRJU+iNT/mFF5tI92kN4Uan/MKLzaR7tIbxczCCCCACCCCACCCCACCCCACCCCAI2ktIJIlTJsw2SWpZj0DmG8nZ1xQ9FV06oxzZieEz2IZWUKLALcbCM8vth5wiOO5kUnJp0rF0hG4wr03wWhZQYjLliWyqgVsa2uSLckDPLbc9cYZW+DpwJNskzKdZkoq+ak3YZ5gbsorGlqKo5HEy5EhA2fJVppG4g7Fi20RHqjHS6y5aGY27dvJOQHbGG5vSIFIjvSGXNILMpBPSRutHJ6PRGF2lsFLKx8LM7TZgLx12bWGWoxAGwJYXOX6KhRY+XojmWtrsanjVTApCEc9xe/tjSNoidPcgz6cSXuOSDtPSdvrhgKvLtiLpar42QjsAM8+Y2F8vqwpl1eIReBSaR7paqGcV6dXc0SdKV6DInEfzR/HdCGfVYtgsPXGiRk5JEv/ANQzzMRqipxOGG3n540IhOzOJlLo5rgmJpGdtj3RM05RaqJ9kJNG0NgMosFLIirLDKSY3mNUhY3QLGphCgyQFmS+kzFO84Lkj6hb6sOmtzQs0rNw4XIyUi/kG0fVxwIsrGtE+8hel1PYr/bBGjWRMMsp+ZNw9gbP2QRJU+mNT/mFF5tI92kN4Uan/MKLzaR7tIbxczCCCCACCCCACCCCACCCCACCMZkwKCTsGZPMBHL9M8KFUj4pcgcRnZsLM5A2Ne4HVaIbolKyx8J8g9xiYL/IzEc/snkseoNfqip6L00qSprXJIQ2A3ndaPJuvU6rknip6EOpBUykZTfapG7LKKVU6Sm0qEPJJVd6E7M8yG2Z9MUmlI0x3F2dXoaobbixF73sPXEfSFfLqMBluk0SHuwVgVBIKjEwyyN8oV6BoDOQvjIp3QsQcjY58l/orbbeEentEzzTzZVCVlyULTLl+XMxMzcmwyPhZnIgC0ctNbNnb/LeiyS9L8ZMeXxb4EyLS2DMx/NXZbrMUrXKRLIPFpMF7hnd7ta4soW5z3E7umHupFSkuQsmbMCTAobDiF2VxcOrHwgYg61PJlqZha43AsLX3xZNJktbVRWa2eeIKW8HG5G+wTPsAikVWlGa4GQ9f/aGtVrNdjgBINw99hUixUDpBOcKe4jcb75jMEkbjtjoiqVnHOduiOkgnZEyRoy5zhjQ0UP6XReyLWRSFtBoQc0O5OhgAMomU1HhhnJl5RWwQaaitu2QwlSbRmsrbG1RAbGKrAWj1oxw5wDMTOA3wk07Xji2sCfZmCP4w5NGp2mItfopDLdQCSykDywRUpes98KEjNlkMfKZVifrAwRt1sQ8XTk75YHUjTQPbBFgfSup/wAwovNpHu0hvCjU/wCYUXm0j3aQ3ixmEEEEAEEEEAEEEEAER6yvSULu4UdJ9g2mN5jmGuPGPVzFLELkMtoWwyHNe+ZgBjrBryZyTJVKBYgo01mK2vkQoCm5t2RU6PRzISWfFcWwm5C8+Em1weYqIYSKUKBYWAHJXmHP5Y3NLvbCL+zrivJZbFfp9XpSzMa3XI4jiwLYZ4mUc3PD/VWZJqJU2fhunGFUxC+JJdhjI/Sa58kIeEClcUE0qxBDIZgX/wBsmzD2Hqir6P14aRSKktOQOTibJSeYWzYxnkTpJHRhatuTOx6fnKlFPGXKlMNmXLFrW3ix2RQNBz5lLo6peobGzLxcpDbGoIIQdNy+Q6Ir0jXPSFUi8iW0sEZEEXw7iQbndDebo+qqQHnTBLtmqyltZtxLG5yO6MtEmzdZIRWwv4SdFsJdMLANT06BiLfo5AjMi5aKJS6Omzdocrz5ke2LbP1QdzypztuN2LXt5TzwxotD8UAAY2itKowm9TtCSi1WVVzxXPOsZzdXbC46ujp6IsoQ3zjY8sdkWszoq66OZTcE23DbDPR1Q+NFZMiwBN7WB3wyMiMRJOVjY559Fje3qiCRhS4XF12XI+qbRLWTCXV2vExZgAsVc3XmxAW9Sw8R4FWzUVzjLDGUyMWgQYPGlo2PsjVigSjB0J2Rom07WzcjyRumOd0RZxO9rQQKjrI5NNTm98M2ol59Dlh6ngjTrBOvSfs1Tj60tWv1wRcg+ntT/mFF5tI92kN4Uan/ADCi82ke7SG8SZhBBBABBBBABBBBABFA1vlWqybZlFNycuY5b90X+KrrzoZ5qpMlDE8u912YlO4Hnv7YEoqZmDfnEWv0sJY5TLLHSQIrGmdYpiXUypyNzlMI6nYgdkUvSemHxZBAx2G/GOSeYnZFbL0W3TGvKKpwqZl7i7AhSDlaxzYGOe1pdwGK4VXJVGxbnd1mL5onUc4VadczGFyTc2vu6IZay6qqKOYFAxWuOrOJJ2o91V0ZhkJ6uuLEq2hdqNVcbRym3qMDeVSYczEteIoiyvTB7THkoA57hGufMyyjLQrpMqJcqYWCvcEqM72JFtu+Ktl0nZJ4sWuRGlpUM63Qc1GAU4kPgllIbfttcbo1Po6YQMLSzf8AauOgjdGfcj7m3Zn7EBTESsrOLRiou2xRzsxFvYYw0hPmyWImIR+kMwemE1Fp5nntLSWrPiBR5hISWqqbuQNubHfuEXW/BjK4umM9ELMlTFM0j5RgpFrZkgAk7znFmEUDTelpTVEsS2edxIQqEyDzr3ZjkbKMrW23i26PrnYIJoCzGUtYAgXv4Iub3sR5bGJoqT5hyjXijya2XZ7Y1loFj2Y8aXaB22xGaZeBVmUyZEOeyjMtGUx4jzp6jdc3ggVTTDA08y17d0j3WUEeaRe8qcD4wp/wzBFyD6m1P+YUXm0j3aQ3jjOhOGviaanldyYuLlS0xcfa+BFW9uKyvbniZ+Hn9S/eP5USZnWoI5L+Hn9S/eP5UH4ef1L94/lQB1qCOS/h5/Uv3j+VB+Hn9S/eP5UAdagjkv4ef1L94/lQfh5/Uv3j+VAHWo8ZARYxyb8PP6l+8fyoPw8/qX7x/KgDoOldV5M9SrorA7mAI7DHNtIcGcmlq+OC3VjdUOxWHN0b7RI/D1+pfvH8qEmsHDDxzJelsFGQ4++Z3/i4EofvttGGk5eKWR0X7BFK/CaMV+5z/fD7uMn4T/1c8344fdwZayZwZvZamUfozbjri21Y5LdAMcr0JrqJFRNdZJIbavGW38+Dp5od1PCeGVh3MRcH/fX/APziEHyTpi5eS0RtXah0r5BlhSWYpyycIDixPJzBtCl9eBhtxG3+1/0QrbWrlAqjKQRZhMsR0g4cjGbWxrF0z6CSVMBPGFDllZCvPvJN4rFU6hyN4Ym4y6M4rVNwrpLyWkbmN6t3v9dDCbTPCIZkxmEnDls4y/8A0COVwZ3RypeS+mSk9XJyFsIJ9ov0xzuroFxvLa112dKnMRjo3XtsT4pZZQQQvGWtl0qcoX6w61ibMSYsoowGE/KAgjIj6A2XMbYk06Ms8oyjZIoQZFwlwp2hSUcdIcZnyHKM9I6XqJeAy5gmS3ORmAYwwzKO4355c8KH1iuPxeY34/8ATEd9NXlzUKZTBfwvBZSLMMtucbnEdGpaovKRmtcjlW2XGREeu0U3R+t+GWimVeyi54y1znnbDG5td8/xJ/vB8ERRNloZo0WiuNrt/Y/4n+iPF1z/ALL/ABP9MKILCZF9sApQd1+mESa4DfJJ/wDst/0RtbXUW/En+9/0QLEPT1EqSph3mel/7t4Ig6X0+JqOOLteYreHfYrC3g9MeRJFH//Z
I wrote this test that keeps on adding 'a' to parameter until the browser fails
C# part:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ActionResult ParamTest(string x)
{
ViewBag.TestLength = 0;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(x))
{
System.IO.File.WriteAllLines("c:/result.txt",
new[] {Request.UserAgent, x.Length.ToString()});
ViewBag.TestLength = x.Length + 1;
}
return View();
}
View:
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
var text = "a";
for (var i = 0; i < parseInt(#ViewBag.TestLength)-1; i++) {
text += "a";
}
document.location.href = "http://localhost:50766/Home/ParamTest?x=" + text;
});
</script>
PART 1
On Chrome I got:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36
2046
It then blew up with:
HTTP Error 404.15 - Not Found The request filtering module is
configured to deny a request where the query string is too long.
Same on Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
2046
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
2046
PART 2
I went easy mode and added additional limits to IISExpress applicationhost.config and web.config setting maxQueryStringLength="32768".
Chrome failed with message 'Bad Request - Request Too Long
HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long.
after 7744 characters.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36
7744
PART 3
Added
<headerLimits>
<add header="Content-type" sizeLimit="32768" />
</headerLimits>
which didn't help at all. I finally decided to use fiddler to remove the referrer from header.
static function OnBeforeRequest(oSession: Session) {
if (oSession.url.Contains("localhost:50766")) {
oSession.RequestHeaders.Remove("Referer");
}
Which did nicely.
Chrome: got to 15613 characters. (I guess it's a 16K limit for IIS)
And it failed again with:
<BODY><h2>Bad Request - Request Too Long</h2>
<hr><p>HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long.</p>
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36
15613
Firefox:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
15708
Internet Explorer 8 failed with iexplore.exe crashing.
After 2505
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
2505
Android Emulator
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 5.1; Android SDK built for x86 Build/LKY45) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/39.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36
7377
Internet Explorer 11
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/7.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C)
4043
Internet Explorer 10
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/6.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C)
4043
Internet Explorer 9
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0)
4043
WWW FAQs: What is the maximum length of a URL? has its own answer based on empirical testing and research. The short answer is that going over 2048 characters makes Internet Explorer unhappy and thus this is the limit you should use. See the page for a long answer.
On Apple platforms (iOS/macOS/tvOS/watchOS), the limit may be a 2 GB long URL scheme, as seen by this comment in the source code of Swift:
// Make sure the URL string isn't too long.
// We're limiting it to 2GB for backwards compatibility with 32-bit executables using NS/CFURL
if ( (urlStringLength > 0) && (urlStringLength <= INT_MAX) )
{
...
On iOS, I've tested and confirmed that even a 300+ MB long URL is accepted. You can try such a long URL like this in Objective-C:
NSString *path = [#"a:" stringByPaddingToLength:314572800 withString:#"a" startingAtIndex:0];
NSString *js = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"window.location.href = \"%#\";", path];
[self.webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:js];
And catch if it succeed with:
- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType
{
NSLog(#"length: %#", #(request.URL.absoluteString.length));
return YES;
}
There is really no universal maximum URL length. The max length is determined only by what the client browser chooses to support, which varies widely. The 2,083 limit is only present in Internet Explorer (all versions up to 7.0). The max length in Firefox and Safari seems to be unlimited, although instability occurs with URLs reaching around 65,000 characters.
Opera seems to have no max URL length whatsoever, and doesn't suffer instability at extremely long lengths.
The URI RFC (of which URLs are a subset) doesn't define a maximum length, however, it does recommend that the hostname part of the URI (if applicable) not exceed 255 characters in length:
URI producers should use names that
conform to the DNS syntax, even when
use of DNS is not immediately
apparent, and should limit these names
to no more than 255 characters in
length.
As noted in other posts though, some browsers have a practical limitation on the length of a URL.
The HTTP 1.1 specification says:
URIs in HTTP can be represented in
absolute form or relative to some
known base URI [11], depending upon
the context of their use. The two
forms are differentiated by the fact
that absolute URIs always begin
with a scheme name followed by a
colon. For definitive information on
URL syntax and semantics, see "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic
Syntax and Semantics," RFC 2396 [42]
(which replaces RFCs 1738 [4] and
RFC 1808 [11]). This specification
adopts the definitions of
"URI-reference", "absoluteURI",
"relativeURI", "port",
"host","abs_path", "rel_path", and
"authority" from that
specification.
The HTTP protocol does not place
any a priori limit on the length of
a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle
the URI of any resource they serve,
and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of
unbounded length if they provide
GET-based forms that could generate
such URIs.* A server SHOULD return
414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a
URI is longer than the server can
handle (see section 10.4.15).
Note: Servers ought to be cautious about depending on URI
lengths
above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy
implementations might not properly support these lengths.
As mentioned by #Brian, the HTTP clients (e.g. browsers) may have their own limits, and HTTP servers will have different limits.
Microsoft Support says "Maximum URL length is 2,083 characters in Internet Explorer".
IE has problems with URLs longer than that. Firefox seems to work fine with >4k chars.
In URL as UI Jakob Nielsen recommends:
the social interface to the Web relies on email when users want to recommend Web pages to each other, and email is the second-most common way users get to new sites (search engines being the most common): make sure that all URLs on your site are less than 78 characters long so that they will not wrap across a line feed.
This is not the maximum but I'd consider this a practical maximum if you want your URL to be shared.
Sitemaps protocol, which is a way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites (also used by Google in Webmaster Tools), supports URLs with less than 2048 characters. So if you are planning to use this feature for Search Engine Optimization, take this into account.
ASP.NET 2 and SQL Server reporting services 2005 have a limit of 2028. I found this out the hard way, where my dynamic URL generator would not pass over some parameters to a report beyond that point. This was under Internet Explorer 8.
Why is the Internet Explorer limit only 2K while IIS has a limit of 16K? I don't think it makes sense.
So I want to start an experiment about Ajax request URL size limits.
I have set my Tomcat HTTP connector's maxHttpHeaderSize="1048576". And prepared a very long URL.
Then I send a request with the long URL like the following:
var url="/ajax/url-length.jsp";
jQuery.ajax(url,{data:{q:"0".repeat(1048000-url.length-4)}});
jQuery reports done. Tomcat reports the URL requested is 1048015 bytes. It was tested with Chrome 50 and Internet Explorer 11.
So web browsers won't truncate or limit your URL intentionally when sending Ajax requests.
Limit request line directive sets the maximum length of a URL. By default, it is set to 8190, which gives you a lot of room. However other servers and some browses, limit the length more.
Because all parameters are passed on the URL line, items that were in password of hidden fields will also be displayed in the URL of course. Neither mobile should be used for real security measures and should be considered cosmetic security at best.
It seems that Chrome at least has raised this limit. I pasted 20,000 characters into the bookmarklet and it took it.
I have experience with SharePoint 2007, 2010 and there is a limit of the length URL you can create from the server side in this case SharePoint, so it depends mostly on, 1) the client (browser, version, and OS) and 2) the server technology, IIS, Apache, etc.
According to the HTTP spec, there is no limit to a URL's length. Keep your URLs under 2048 characters; this will ensure the URLs work in all clients & server configurations. Also, search engines like URLs to remain under approximately 2000 characters.
As a result of my research, I discovered that the HTTP standard does not specify a maximum length for URLs. In fact, it is determined by the web browser and the server the request is made.
There are different limitations on the maximum length of URLs for different web browsers. The following are some common limits for popular web browsers:
Internet Explorer: 2,083 characters
Google Chrome: 8,192 characters
Mozilla Firefox: 65,536 characters
Safari: 80,000 characters
To ensure compatibility with as many web browsers and servers as possible, URLs should generally be short and simple. Request is better if you need to send large amounts of data. Instead of including data in the URL, the request body will include the data.
Related
How to get base64 like a get method [duplicate]
What is the maximum length of a URL for each browser? Is a maximum URL length part of the HTTP specification?
Short answer - de facto limit of 2000 characters If you keep URLs under 2000 characters, they'll work in virtually any combination of client and server software. If you are targeting particular browsers, see below for more details on specific limits. Longer answer - first, the standards... RFC 2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP/1.1) section 3.2.1 says The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15). That RFC has been obsoleted by RFC7230 which is a refresh of the HTTP/1.1 specification. It contains similar language, but also goes on to suggest this: Various ad hoc limitations on request-line length are found in practice. It is RECOMMENDED that all HTTP senders and recipients support, at a minimum, request-line lengths of 8000 octets. ...and the reality That's what the standards say. For the reality, there was an article on boutell.com (link goes to Internet Archive backup) that discussed what individual browser and server implementations will support. The executive summary is: Extremely long URLs are usually a mistake. URLs over 2,000 characters will not work in the most popular web browsers. Don't use them if you intend your site to work for the majority of Internet users. (Note: this is a quote from an article written in 2006, but in 2015 IE's declining usage means that longer URLs do work for the majority. However, IE still has the limitation...) Internet Explorer's limitations... IE8's maximum URL length is 2083 chars, and it seems IE9 has a similar limit. I've tested IE10 and the address bar will only accept 2083 chars. You can click a URL which is longer than this, but the address bar will still only show 2083 characters of this link. There's a nice writeup on the IE Internals blog which goes into some of the background to this. There are mixed reports IE11 supports longer URLs - see comments below. Given some people report issues, the general advice still stands. Search engines like URLs < 2048 chars... Be aware that the sitemaps protocol, which allows a site to inform search engines about available pages, has a limit of 2048 characters in a URL. If you intend to use sitemaps, a limit has been decided for you! (see Calin-Andrei Burloiu's answer below) There's also some research from 2010 into the maximum URL length that search engines will crawl and index. They found the limit was 2047 chars, which appears allied to the sitemap protocol spec. However, they also found the Google SERP tool wouldn't cope with URLs longer than 1855 chars. CDNs have limits CDNs also impose limits on URI length, and will return a 414 Too long request when these limits are reached, for example: Fastly 8Kb CloudFront 8Kb CloudFlare 16Kb (credit to timrs2998 for providing that info in the comments) Additional browser roundup I tested the following against an Apache 2.4 server configured with a very large LimitRequestLine and LimitRequestFieldSize. Browser Address bar document.location or anchor tag ------------------------------------------ Chrome 32779 >64k Android 8192 >64k Firefox >64k >64k Safari >64k >64k IE11 2047 5120 Edge 16 2047 10240 See also this answer from Matas Vaitkevicius below. Is this information up to date? This is a popular question, and as the original research is ~14 years old I'll try to keep it up to date: As of Jan 2021, the advice still stands. Even though IE11 may possibly accept longer URLs, the ubiquity of older IE installations plus the search engine limitations mean staying under 2000 chars is the best general policy.
The longest URLs I came across are data URLs Example image URL from Google image results (11747 characters) data:image/jpeg;base64,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
I wrote this test that keeps on adding 'a' to parameter until the browser fails C# part: [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)] public ActionResult ParamTest(string x) { ViewBag.TestLength = 0; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(x)) { System.IO.File.WriteAllLines("c:/result.txt", new[] {Request.UserAgent, x.Length.ToString()}); ViewBag.TestLength = x.Length + 1; } return View(); } View: <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { var text = "a"; for (var i = 0; i < parseInt(#ViewBag.TestLength)-1; i++) { text += "a"; } document.location.href = "http://localhost:50766/Home/ParamTest?x=" + text; }); </script> PART 1 On Chrome I got: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36 2046 It then blew up with: HTTP Error 404.15 - Not Found The request filtering module is configured to deny a request where the query string is too long. Same on Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E) 2046 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0 2046 PART 2 I went easy mode and added additional limits to IISExpress applicationhost.config and web.config setting maxQueryStringLength="32768". Chrome failed with message 'Bad Request - Request Too Long HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long. after 7744 characters. Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36 7744 PART 3 Added <headerLimits> <add header="Content-type" sizeLimit="32768" /> </headerLimits> which didn't help at all. I finally decided to use fiddler to remove the referrer from header. static function OnBeforeRequest(oSession: Session) { if (oSession.url.Contains("localhost:50766")) { oSession.RequestHeaders.Remove("Referer"); } Which did nicely. Chrome: got to 15613 characters. (I guess it's a 16K limit for IIS) And it failed again with: <BODY><h2>Bad Request - Request Too Long</h2> <hr><p>HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long.</p> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.130 Safari/537.36 15613 Firefox: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0 15708 Internet Explorer 8 failed with iexplore.exe crashing. After 2505 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E) 2505 Android Emulator Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 5.1; Android SDK built for x86 Build/LKY45) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/39.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36 7377 Internet Explorer 11 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/7.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C) 4043 Internet Explorer 10 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/6.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C) 4043 Internet Explorer 9 Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0) 4043
WWW FAQs: What is the maximum length of a URL? has its own answer based on empirical testing and research. The short answer is that going over 2048 characters makes Internet Explorer unhappy and thus this is the limit you should use. See the page for a long answer.
On Apple platforms (iOS/macOS/tvOS/watchOS), the limit may be a 2 GB long URL scheme, as seen by this comment in the source code of Swift: // Make sure the URL string isn't too long. // We're limiting it to 2GB for backwards compatibility with 32-bit executables using NS/CFURL if ( (urlStringLength > 0) && (urlStringLength <= INT_MAX) ) { ... On iOS, I've tested and confirmed that even a 300+ MB long URL is accepted. You can try such a long URL like this in Objective-C: NSString *path = [#"a:" stringByPaddingToLength:314572800 withString:#"a" startingAtIndex:0]; NSString *js = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"window.location.href = \"%#\";", path]; [self.webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:js]; And catch if it succeed with: - (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType { NSLog(#"length: %#", #(request.URL.absoluteString.length)); return YES; }
There is really no universal maximum URL length. The max length is determined only by what the client browser chooses to support, which varies widely. The 2,083 limit is only present in Internet Explorer (all versions up to 7.0). The max length in Firefox and Safari seems to be unlimited, although instability occurs with URLs reaching around 65,000 characters. Opera seems to have no max URL length whatsoever, and doesn't suffer instability at extremely long lengths.
The URI RFC (of which URLs are a subset) doesn't define a maximum length, however, it does recommend that the hostname part of the URI (if applicable) not exceed 255 characters in length: URI producers should use names that conform to the DNS syntax, even when use of DNS is not immediately apparent, and should limit these names to no more than 255 characters in length. As noted in other posts though, some browsers have a practical limitation on the length of a URL.
The HTTP 1.1 specification says: URIs in HTTP can be represented in absolute form or relative to some known base URI [11], depending upon the context of their use. The two forms are differentiated by the fact that absolute URIs always begin with a scheme name followed by a colon. For definitive information on URL syntax and semantics, see "Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax and Semantics," RFC 2396 [42] (which replaces RFCs 1738 [4] and RFC 1808 [11]). This specification adopts the definitions of "URI-reference", "absoluteURI", "relativeURI", "port", "host","abs_path", "rel_path", and "authority" from that specification. The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs.* A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15). Note: Servers ought to be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations might not properly support these lengths. As mentioned by #Brian, the HTTP clients (e.g. browsers) may have their own limits, and HTTP servers will have different limits.
Microsoft Support says "Maximum URL length is 2,083 characters in Internet Explorer". IE has problems with URLs longer than that. Firefox seems to work fine with >4k chars.
In URL as UI Jakob Nielsen recommends: the social interface to the Web relies on email when users want to recommend Web pages to each other, and email is the second-most common way users get to new sites (search engines being the most common): make sure that all URLs on your site are less than 78 characters long so that they will not wrap across a line feed. This is not the maximum but I'd consider this a practical maximum if you want your URL to be shared.
Sitemaps protocol, which is a way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites (also used by Google in Webmaster Tools), supports URLs with less than 2048 characters. So if you are planning to use this feature for Search Engine Optimization, take this into account.
ASP.NET 2 and SQL Server reporting services 2005 have a limit of 2028. I found this out the hard way, where my dynamic URL generator would not pass over some parameters to a report beyond that point. This was under Internet Explorer 8.
Why is the Internet Explorer limit only 2K while IIS has a limit of 16K? I don't think it makes sense. So I want to start an experiment about Ajax request URL size limits. I have set my Tomcat HTTP connector's maxHttpHeaderSize="1048576". And prepared a very long URL. Then I send a request with the long URL like the following: var url="/ajax/url-length.jsp"; jQuery.ajax(url,{data:{q:"0".repeat(1048000-url.length-4)}}); jQuery reports done. Tomcat reports the URL requested is 1048015 bytes. It was tested with Chrome 50 and Internet Explorer 11. So web browsers won't truncate or limit your URL intentionally when sending Ajax requests.
Limit request line directive sets the maximum length of a URL. By default, it is set to 8190, which gives you a lot of room. However other servers and some browses, limit the length more. Because all parameters are passed on the URL line, items that were in password of hidden fields will also be displayed in the URL of course. Neither mobile should be used for real security measures and should be considered cosmetic security at best.
It seems that Chrome at least has raised this limit. I pasted 20,000 characters into the bookmarklet and it took it.
I have experience with SharePoint 2007, 2010 and there is a limit of the length URL you can create from the server side in this case SharePoint, so it depends mostly on, 1) the client (browser, version, and OS) and 2) the server technology, IIS, Apache, etc.
According to the HTTP spec, there is no limit to a URL's length. Keep your URLs under 2048 characters; this will ensure the URLs work in all clients & server configurations. Also, search engines like URLs to remain under approximately 2000 characters.
As a result of my research, I discovered that the HTTP standard does not specify a maximum length for URLs. In fact, it is determined by the web browser and the server the request is made. There are different limitations on the maximum length of URLs for different web browsers. The following are some common limits for popular web browsers: Internet Explorer: 2,083 characters Google Chrome: 8,192 characters Mozilla Firefox: 65,536 characters Safari: 80,000 characters To ensure compatibility with as many web browsers and servers as possible, URLs should generally be short and simple. Request is better if you need to send large amounts of data. Instead of including data in the URL, the request body will include the data.
404 Bot Attack on My Website (DDoS of Sorts)
Over the last few days I have noticed that my Wordpress website had been running quite slowly, so I decided to investigate. After checking my database I saw that a table which was responsible for tracking 404 errors was over 1GB is size. At this point it was evident I was being targeted by bots. After checking my access log I could see that there was a pattern of sorts, the bot seemed to land on a legitimate page which listed my categories and then move into a category page and at this point they request seemingly random page numbers, many of which are non-existent pages causing the issue. Example: /watch-online/ - Landing Page /category/evolution/page/7 - 404 /category/evolution/page/1 /category/evolution/page/3 /category/evolution/page/5 - 404 /category/evolution/page/8 - 404 /category/evolution/page/4 - 404 /category/evolution/page/2 /category/evolution/page/6 - 404 /category/evolution/page/9 - 404 /category/evolution/page/10 - 404 This is the actual order of requests and they all happen within a second, at this point the IP becomes blocked as too many 404's have been thrown but this seems to have no affect due to the sheer number of bots all doing the same thing. Also the category changes with each bot so they are all attacking random categories and generating 404 pages. At the moment there are 2037 unique ip's which have thrown similar 404s in the last 24 hours. I also use Cloudflare and have manually blocked many ip's from ever reaching my box but this attack is relentless and it seems as though they keep generating new ip's. Here is a list of some offending ip's: 77.101.138.202 81.149.196.188 109.255.127.90 75.19.16.214 47.187.231.144 70.190.53.222 62.251.17.234 184.155.42.206 74.138.227.150 98.184.129.57 151.224.41.144 94.29.229.186 64.231.243.218 109.160.110.135 222.127.118.145 92.22.14.143 92.14.176.174 50.48.216.145 58.179.196.182 Other than automatically blocking ip's for too many 404 errors I can think of no other real solution and this in itself is quite ineffective due to the sheer number of ip's. Any suggestions on how to deal with this would be greatly appreciated as there appears to be no end to this attack and my websites performance really is taking a hit. Some User Agents Include: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.86 Safari/537.36 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0 Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows NT 7.0; WOW64; Trident/6.0) Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.103 Safari/537.36
If its your personal website, you can try checking cloudflare, which is free and also it can provide support against any ddos attacks.May be you can give a try.
Okay so after much searching, experimentation and head banging I have finally mitigated the attack. The solution was to install the apache module 'mod_evasive' see: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-protect-against-dos-and-ddos-with-mod_evasive-for-apache-on-centos-7 So for any other poor soul that gets slammed as severally as I did have a look at that and get your thresholds finely tuned. This is a simple, cheap and very effective means of drastically downplaying any attack similar to the one I suffered. My server is still getting bombarded by bots but this really does limit their damage.
PHP opening link from Excel runs page three times
I'm having a strange issue, which I find difficult to summarize in a title. First: I have a webpage, where people need to be logged in. I have a Excel document, with links to the webpage. The problem: When people are logged in, and they click on the link in the Excel document. The webpage tells them that they are not logged in. What I found so far: I'm using Office on Mac and I don't have any issues. People using Office on Windows do have issues. I think the issue is due to SESSIONS, that might be the reason why users aren't logged in while they should be. I did some tests. Every URL goes through index.php index.php <?php session_start(); file_put_contents('log.txt', microtime().': SERVER '.print_r($_SERVER, true).PHP_EOL, FILE_APPEND); exit; Now when I click the link from Office on Mac (NO ISSUES!!!), I get a dump of the variable $_SERVER. Two important variables: [HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_11_5) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.103 Safari/537.36 [HTTP_COOKIE] => PHPSESSID=77lpqmdmvskv33d2ddsdlfs5q7; rememberme=1%3Ae79e92271e7e05a5ee5679b659b3cb5cbb61e60d96c158f4648960136b175164%3Accdee80c3e42705fcd7e8c234525beda86d27394653dfdfb42bdd3ec98592ca1 You can see the browser (Chrome) and the cookie, which contains a rememberme cookie for login. Now, when I do the same by clicking on a link in Excel on Windows, I get the $_SERVER variable printed three times in the log file! First: [HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Microsoft Office Excel 2014 [HTTP_COOKIE] => PHPSESSID=0ivlfjf49j4b82858tstc2lmm3; PHPSESSID=tv6gs33j721d0tmm3rrjdoho45 Notice the user agent and no rememberme cookie. Second: [HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; Trident/7.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; ms-office) [HTTP_COOKIE] => PHPSESSID=0ivlfjf49j4b82858tstc2lmm3 Notice, still no chrome browser and rememberme cookie. Third: [HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.103 Safari/537.36 [HTTP_COOKIE] => PHPSESSID=3s0hvtssghk7uomvkpb5k70tc2; rememberme=1%3Aa9bd74ad58a0d7075c27108be1adbd26ba6d18f6e8b39073152d6780131ffe70%3A643852f8636c76c0bfc4017ec7fe3eab98dd57f5bcfdf86f0e37b5ec28a0c0ef Finally user agent is Chrome and rememberme cookie is set. So, it's getting a long story. But clicking on the link in Excel from Windows, it does strange things. Anyone an idea what is happening?
Oke, I found the problem. Below an answer from superuser.com The URL you're using needs some more information from a cookie to display the search results rather than the search page. Paste the URL into a different browser (or remove your cookies) and you'll get the same results. Clicking a URL in Excel seems to open it in your default browser. But that's not really true. Before opening it in your browser, Excel first runs Microsoft Office Protocol Discovery. This uses a Windows/Internet Explorer component to determine if the URL works. (It does not identify itself as Internet Explorer, but as "User Agent: Microsoft Office Existence Discovery".) And if the results are (somehow) okay then it will open the result of that check in your default browser. Lacking the cookies (more precisely: lacking a session), GoDaddy gives that Internet Explorer component some redirect. And the result of that is opened in your default browser. That's the URL you're seeing. Most likely your default browser is not Internet Explorer? Then pasting the URL into IE directly and clicking it, to get the cookies, might then also make the link work from Excel. (Just for testing; it's not a permanent solution.) You will have more luck using a URL that does not rely on some hidden information from a cookie, like http://www.godaddy.com/domains/search.aspx?domainToCheck=superuser.com Source: https://superuser.com/a/445431 So to solve this issue: When Excel checked the link, it gets redirected to '/login' because it wasn't logged in. And finally that URL is the URL Excel opens in the real browser. So I changed the login script and a user will not be redirected to '/login', but stay on the same URL and it will be shown the login form if not logged in. Excel now opens the original URL an if the user is logged in, it will see the page. If it is not logged in, the login form will be shown.
How to load xml file from another server on html file using javascript?
Webpage error details User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; FunWebProducts; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; msn OptimizedIE8;ENIN) Timestamp: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:33:31 UTC Message: Access is denied. Line: 18 Char: 1 Code: 0 URI: http://www.legacyjobline.com/rating_page.html
You are going to be severely limited in cross-domain JavaScript. Look into JSONP.
Due to security restrictions it is not possible to use Javascript to read xml files from another domain.
You are being denied to do that by the Same Origin Policy. Depending on your use case there could be workarounds. Tell us more.
The message is quite clear: "Access is denied". If you really need that XML, you could try to write a PHP script on your local server that reads the XML file and then, from your JavaScript, try to load your PHP script (which would have to return a application/xml or text/xml or whatever MIME type matches to XML).
Finding HTTP_REFERER empty/blank when using URL shortener site
I have a client who is trying to determine traffic metrics, to his site by way of those "URL shortened" sites: (tinyurl.com, bit.ly and x.co) to be specific, and to take action based on that traffic... We would have thought that the HTTP_REFERER variable would have held the referring resource name, the shortened URL from that service. Instead the HTTP_REFERER field is empty and if read in some browsers its actually not even there (I guess NULL?). Here is an example of an attempt to enter a shortened URL that goes to my client's site and the name of the page is x.php: HTTP_CONNECTION:keep-alive HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE:115 HTTP_ACCEPT:text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8,application/json HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET:ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING:gzip,deflate HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE:en-us,en;q=0.5 HTTP_COOKIE:ASPSESSIONDQADBDABT=HAEFPIOBONKMOIJFDGNHHEM HTTP_HOST:www.<myclientswebsite>.com HTTP_USER_AGENT:Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8 (.NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729) Why wouldnt the http://x.co shortened URL show up in the header info OR am I not looking in the correct place? My client would ultimately like to redirect incoming traffic to the appropriate resource within his website AND/OR out to other sites he owns. UPDATE: I've looked through his raw traffic logs and I cant find a specific referrer other than x.co or bit.ly, etc I do not see the "/" part.. Is there something I can change in his IIS6 settings, on his web server, that would allow us to see and utilize the information he's looking for, or are we just out of luck due to the design of the HTTP redirect?
Because the shortening services use response 301 or 302 and Location - there is no referer. Your browser does not pass it.
HTTP_REFERER is an optional header. In some cases they are stripped out (security software, proxies, etc). In the case of URL shortening services, they probably do a header redirect and simply don't include HTTP_REFERER.