Limiting Web UI upload size limit

General
1

I have a question that I assume is recurring, but I can’t find an answer in the forum search.

We limit push size with Admin → Settings → Account and limit → Maximum push size

But that doesn’t apply to the Web UI, and we have users occasionally erroneously uploading large files that way. Is there a way to limit the size of Web UI uploads?

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2

You can probably edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and set this value:

# nginx['client_max_body_size'] = '250m'

the default is 250m, so you may wish to reduce that to stop them uploading large files.

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3

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll test that.

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4

Unfortunately, it looks like nginx[‘client_max_body_size’] would also restrict the API, which we don’t want to do. We’re looking for a fix specific to restricting the size of uploads through the Web UI.

5

You can limit Web UI upload size by configuring your web server. If you’re using NGINX, update the client_max_body_size setting in your config file. For Apache, you can use LimitRequestBody to restrict file sizes. Unfortunately, GitLab doesn’t have a built-in setting for this, so adjusting your server configuration is the best approach.

6

@jacoboliverleo, unfortunately nginx[‘client_max_body_size’] also restricts the API, which we don’t want to do – we’re looking for a fix that’s specific to restricting the size of uploads through the Web UI.

The inability to restrict this does appear to be an important config omission.

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7

Perhaps open an issue here so that Gitlab Dev’s can integrate it: Issues · GitLab.org / GitLab · GitLab

Your other option is by using the:

nginx['custom_nginx_config'] = "include /etc/gitlab/my-custom-nginx.conf;"

and within that file, configure location block for /api but with different value for client_max_body_size that is higher than the one already mentioned. You’ll then limit the web interface just as you want, with also having a different value for /api.

8

@iwalker I’ll try that suggestion, and have posted this issue: Missing config option to limit size of Web UI uploads (#525442) · Issues · GitLab.org / GitLab · GitLab

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9

So using nginx['custom_nginx_config'] will not work, as the location block will be outside of Gitlab’s api “server” block.

However, there is nginx['custom_gitlab_server_config'], see docs on nginx setting

I have tested the following works, when I hard code a project UR. When I try to commit file(s) +5MB I get an error “failed to commit” in the Web UI:

nginx['custom_gitlab_server_config'] = "location ^~ /api/v4/projects/group-one/test-pages/repository/commits {\n client_max_body_size 5M;\n}\n"

Unfortunately when I move to use regex, the limit is not working.

nginx['custom_gitlab_server_config'] = "location ~ ^/api/v\d/projects/.+/repository/commits {\n proxy_cache off;\nproxy_pass http://gitlab-workhorse;\nproxy_intercept_errors off;\nclient_max_body_size 5M;\n}\n"

Reviewing the compiled NGINX file at /var/opt/gitlab/nginx/conf/gitlab-http.conf,
I notice that Gitlab puts these custom rules at the end of the config. Therefore when regex is used, the main /api/v4 route is picked up first (I believe per nginx match ordering).

10

Yeah, that’s the tricky part , nginx[‘client_max_body_size’] affects both the Web UI and API, so it’s not ideal if you only want to limit UI uploads.

As far as I know, GitLab doesn’t currently support separate limits for just the Web UI. A possible workaround could be a reverse proxy or middleware that filters by route and applies size limits just to upload endpoints. Not perfect, but it gives a bit more control.