413 Request Entity Too Large uploading files with Django Admin and Nginx Configuration

Question

Whenever I upload a small file, such as an image, the data is saved successfully. However, when I upload an audio file I get this error: 413 Request Entity Too Large. The file sizes are around 8MB. The confusing part is that uploading these files in development process easily but now that the website is live, it doesn't work. I read that you can change the limit of the upload size but can't seem to figure it out. Another thing I read is that you should have files uploaded to a server, and you can use Nginx. I think I configured it; I typed the command

scp -r * root@[my ip address] /usr/share/nginx/html

and the files from my media folder were uploaded there. Now with that the files are not automatically put there, instead they are sent to the project's media folder. Shouldn't it automatically upload to the Nginx server?

Answer 1

By default, nginx is configured to allow a client maximum body size of 1MB. The files you are uploading (~8MB) are larger than 1MB, which is why the 413 (Request Entity Too Large) error is being returned.

To fix this issue, simply edit nginx.conf and add a client_max_body_size configuration like so:

    ######################
    # HTTP server
    ######################
    server {
        ...
        listen       80;
        server_name  xxxx.com;
        client_max_body_size 20M;
        ...
    }

If you have HTTPS configured as well, be sure to add client_max_body_size there as well:

    ######################
    # HTTPS server
    ######################
    server {
        ...
        listen       443 default_server ssl;
        server_name  xxxx.com;
        client_max_body_size 20M;
        ...
    }

reload your server and you should be good!

[server]$ sudo service nginx reload

---

More info on client_max_body_size here: http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#client_max_body_size

Syntax: client_max_body_size size;

Default: client_max_body_size 1m;

Context: http, server, location

Sets the maximum allowed size of the client request body, specified in the “Content-Length” request header field. If the size in a request exceeds the configured value, the 413 (Request Entity Too Large) error is returned to the client. Please be aware that browsers cannot correctly display this error. Setting size to 0 disables checking of client request body size.