What is the limit on QueryString / GET / URL parameters
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What is the limit on QueryString / GET / URL parameters
Http Solutions
Solution 1 - Http
There is no limit in theory. For HTTP URLs, the HTTP 1.1 specification states:
> 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).
But in practice, many clients and servers do only support URLs up to a certain length. The rule of thumb is not to use URLs longer than 2000 characters (percent encoding already taken into account).
Solution 2 - Http
There is no defined limit. However, RFC 2068 states:
> 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 should be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations may not properly support these lengths.
Solution 3 - Http
Although officially there is no limit specified by RFC 2616, many security protocols and recommendations state that maxQueryStrings on a server should be set to a maximum character limit of 1024. While the entire URL, including the querystring, should be set to a max of 2048 characters. This is to prevent the Slow HTTP Request DDOS vulnerability on a web server. This typically shows up as a vulnerability on the Qualys Web Application Scanner and other security scanners.
Please see the below exampple code for Windows IIS Servers with Web.config:
This would also work on a server level using machine.config.
Note: Limiting query string and URL length may not completely prevent Slow HTTP Requests DDOS attack but it is one step you can take to prevent it.