# Nginx 0.7.6 sends original POST body in proxied GET subrequests from SSI

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-0-7-6-sends-original-post-body-in-proxied-get-subrequests-from-ssi/142499>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [July 8, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-0-7-6-sends-original-post-body-in-proxied-get-subrequests-from-ssi/142499 "2008-07-08T16:32:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![piespy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/85e7bf/32.png) [@piespy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/piespy)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-0-7-6-sends-original-post-body-in-proxied-get-subrequests-from-ssi/142499/1 "2008-07-08T16:32:59Z")

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Apologies if you get this twice, apparently the first time I sent it my  
confirmation hadn’t been processed yet.

I have a PHP script (proxied via Apache) that accepts file uploads.  
These  
are then processed by an external batch processor, which may take a long  
time. To not keep the PHP script waiting for the batch process to  
complete,  
it writes a temporary file containing SSI include requests, and gives  
that  
file back to nginx via X-Accel-Redirect. This way nginx can wait for  
completion (when the first SSI include becomes ready), and then send the  
second SSI include to another PHP script that reports the batch process  
result to the browser.

However, when contacting the second PHP script, nginx resends the  
original  
POST body even though the subrequest correctly uses the GET method  
(since  
0.6.26). I have verified this using tcpdump, the GET request has a  
Content-Length header equal to the original POST body length, and a  
Content-Type of e.g. “multipart/form-data;  
boundary=----------uwPZJQ9jJJ0O7Q94Bs8ae1”, followed by the POST body.

Apparently this confuses PHP or Apache, so it closes the connection  
before  
nginx is ready, which causes nginx to consider the SSI include to have  
failed, with the following log message:

2008/07/08 14:29:34 [error] 14064#0: \*16 upstream prematurely closed  
connection while reading response header from upstream, client: […]

The basic setup works fine when doing a POST without a file upload. But  
still, I think nginx should send neither Content-Length, Content-Type  
nor  
the POST body content in a GET subrequest (i.e., afaict, any of them).

I’ve tried to fix it by clearing sr-\>request\_body in line 1789 of  
ngx\_http\_core\_module.c, but while that gets rid of the actual body  
content,  
the Content-Length and Content-Type headers are still there and I’ve  
been  
unable to remove these from the subrequest.

Any help is welcome, thanks.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![piespy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/85e7bf/32.png) [@piespy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/piespy)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 4:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-0-7-6-sends-original-post-body-in-proxied-get-subrequests-from-ssi/142499/2 "2008-07-08T16:59:15Z")

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On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 04:22:45PM +0200, piespy wrote:

> result to the browser.  
> failed, with the following log message:  
> ngx\_http\_core\_module.c, but while that gets rid of the actual body content,  
> the Content-Length and Content-Type headers are still there and I’ve been  
> unable to remove these from the subrequest.
> 
> Any help is welcome, thanks.

location /subrequest {  
proxy\_pass\_request\_body off;

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![piespy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/85e7bf/32.png) [@piespy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/piespy)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-0-7-6-sends-original-post-body-in-proxied-get-subrequests-from-ssi/142499/3 "2008-07-08T19:14:39Z")

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On 7/8/08, Igor S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> location /subrequest {  
> proxy\_pass\_request\_body off;

Thanks. That wasn’t enough though, I also needed  
“proxy\_pass\_request\_headers off” or it would still send the  
Content-Type and Content-Length headers even though it wasn’t sending  
the corresponding body (making the request invalid according to RFC  
2616). And then I had to manually set the Host header again. (I  
suppose I could also just have hidden the Content-\* headers instead.)

Probably “proxy\_pass\_request\_body off” should also automatically  
remove the Content-\* headers referring to the body, or at least the  
documentation changed to say that they need to be removed when doing  
this to avoid invalid requests.

I also think that this removal of the request body should be the  
default behaviour for subrequests, since nobody expects a GET request  
to have a body.

By the way, I was surprised to see, reading RFC 2616 now, that request  
bodies are apparently allowed (or rather, not prohibited) with any of  
the request methods it documents, including GET or even HEAD. This  
seems counter-productive.