Eddie On Everything

Uploading Large Files to a LAMP setup - upload_max_filesize, post_max_size, and max_allowed_packet

December 28, 2007 on 11:57 am | In linux |

So you’re trying to upload a large file via PHP and you’re getting an error, eh? It’s probably because of PHP’s default configuration, which limits uploads to 2 Megs, or because of MySQL’s default 1.5 Meg limitation. Here’s how you change these defaults.

First, find your php.ini file. If you don’t know where it is, create a php file on your server that contains only the following:

<? phpinfo(); ?>

Load that up in your browser and look for the line that says
Configuration File (php.ini) Path

It’s probably set to something like /usr/local/lib/php.ini.

Once found, open up this file and edit the following lines as you see fit:
file_uploads = On
upload_max_filesize = 30M
post_max_size = 30M

In the above example, I’ve updated my configuration to allow uploads of up to 30 Megs.

Once this is complete, restart apache (using something like “/etc/init.d/httpd restart”) and voila, the file upload size limitation should be lifted.

If you’re trying to insert this large uploaded file into a MySQL database, you may, at this time, run into a second limitation:

An error has occured uploading that fileGot a packet bigger than ‘max_allowed_packet’ bytes
SQL: INSERT INTO …

That’s because mysql also has a limit on how large a single SQL query can be. This, too, can be raised - I edited my mysql configuration file at /etc/my.cnf and changed the max_allowed_packet size to 30M as well:

max_allowed_packet = 30M

After doing so, simply restart mysql using something like “/etc/init.d/mysql restart” and the problem should disappear.