Skip to main content

Cannot upload files larger than 1GB in PHP under Apache even with 'post_max_size' and 'upload_max_filesize' set to 4096M


As I understand, when hosting a webserver with Apache and PGP, the three settings within php.ini that determine the maximum upload size are:



  1. memory_limit

  2. post_max_size

  3. upload_max_filesize


As I have read, memory_limit must be greater than post_max_size and post_max_size must be greater than upload_max_filesize. From there, the lowest, which would be upload_max_filesize would actually be the true limit for upload size, within Apache settings anyways.


So, if the above is true, is it true to state that the true maximum file size that can be uploaded to a webserver through PHP running with Apache is equal to the physical memory on the device hosting? Aside from disk writing limitations, i.e. how NTFS limits file size to 4GB per file?


The reason I am asking this is my post_max_size and upload_max_filesize are set to 4096M but while files slightly less than 1GB upload without a problem files over 1GB do not. So would memory_limit be a contributing factor in something like this?



Answer



You ask:



So, if the above is true, is it true to state that the true maximum file size that can be uploaded to a webserver through PHP running with Apache is equal to the physical memory on the device hosting?



Nope. You are correctly interpreting bad advice about memory_limit that would make you think that is the case when the reality is memory_limit has little to nothing to do with file upload size. memory_limit is purely about PHP process memory and has nothing to do with file transferring processes.


Here is why…


The only two items that are of concern when uploading a file using PHP and Apache are:



  • post_max_size: Sets max size of post data allowed. This setting also affects file upload. To upload large files, this value must be larger than upload_max_filesize. Generally speaking, memory_limit should be larger than post_max_size.

  • upload_max_filesize: The maximum size of an uploaded file.


memory_limit has utterly nothing to do with a file transport in such a setup. All memory_limit does is control how much memory each PHP process gets if it is processing something internally. I file transfer has nothing to do with memory_limit.



  • memory_limit: This sets the maximum amount of memory in bytes that a script is allowed to allocate. This helps prevent poorly written scripts for eating up all available memory on a server. Note that to have no memory limit, set this directive to -1.


That said, the PHP manual—as quoted above—says:



Generally speaking, memory_limit should be larger than post_max_size.



This makes no sense and is considered a mistake if you think about it. memory_limit is a constraint of how much data can be handled by a PHP process in RAM. But—as I have said before—a file transfer is a streaming data process and PHP doesn’t store the file contents in RAM for longer than it has to before writing it to the file system.


This Stack Overflow answer states as much. And this other answer explains it more eloquently and succinctly:



Only if you plan on reading an entire file into memory and the file that you read in is larger than the space you have allocated to PHP (i.e. memory_limit), in which case you'll run out of memory.



Comments

Popular Posts

Use Google instead of Bing with Windows 10 search

I want to use Google Chrome and Google search instead of Bing when I search in Windows 10. Google Chrome is launched when I click on web, but it's Bing search. (My default search engine on Google and Edge is http://www.google.com ) I haven't found how to configure that. Someone can help me ? Answer There is no way to change the default in Cortana itself but you can redirect it in Chrome. You said that it opens the results in the Chrome browser but it used Bing search right? There's a Chrome extension now that will redirect Bing to Google, DuckDuckGo, or Yahoo , whichever you prefer. More information on that in the second link.

linux - Using an index to make grep faster?

I find myself grepping the same codebase over and over. While it works great, each command takes about 10 seconds, so I am thinking about ways to make it faster. So can grep use some sort of index? I understand an index probably won't help for complicated regexps, but I use mostly very simple patters. Does an indexer exist for this case? EDIT: I know about ctags and the like, but I would like to do full-text search. Answer what about cscope , does this match your shoes? Allows searching code for: all references to a symbol global definitions functions called by a function functions calling a function text string regular expression pattern a file files including a file

How do I transmit a single hexadecimal value serial data in PuTTY using an Alt code?

I am trying to sent a specific hexadecimal value across a serial COM port using PuTTY. Specifically, I want to send the hex codes 9C, B6, FC, and 8B. I have looked up the Alt codes for these and they are 156, 182, 252, and 139 respectively. However, whenever I input the Alt codes, a preceding hex value of C2 is sent before 9C, B6, and 8B so the values that are sent are C2 9C, C2 B6, and C2 8B. The value for FC is changed to C3 FC. Why are these values being placed before the hex value and why is FC being changed altogether? To me, it seems like there is a problem internally converting the Alt code to hex. Is there a way to directly input hex values without using Alt codes in PuTTY? Answer What you're seeing is just ordinary text character set conversion. As far as PuTTY is concerned, you are typing (and reading) text , not raw binary data, therefore it has to convert the text to bytes in whatever configured character set before sending it over the wire. In other words, when y

networking - Windows 10, can ping other PC but cannot access shared folders! What gives?

I have a computer running Windows 7 that shares a Git repo on drive D. Let's call this PC " win7 ". This repo is the origin of a project that we push to and pull from. The network is a wireless network. One PC on this network is running on Windows 10. Let's call this PC " win10 ". Win10 can ping every other PC on the network including win7 . Win7 can ping win10 . Win7 can access all shared files on win10 . Neither of the PCs have passwords. Problem : Win10 cannot access any shared files on win7 , not from Explorer, nor from Git Bash or any other Git management system (E-Git on Eclipse or Visual Studio). So, win10 cannot pull/push. Every other PC on the network can access win7 shared files and push/pull to/from the shared Git origin. What's wrong with Windows 10? I have tried these: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings\ File sharing is on, Discovery is on, Password protected sharing is off Adapte