Limit on URL size on proxy requests?

Here's an odd situation that we've been trying to resolve for some time. Since
December, we have been unable to download some specific files that we need on a
regular basis from a vendor. Because we're still trying to fully understand
firewall filter rules, we have assumed that it was just us doing something wrong
in our rules.

Today, however, I added specific rules to the start of our filter to allow
myself to go anywhere and do anything (such a thrill!) and to allow any traffic
to and from a generic IP address that includes the site in question. I turned on
logging for all of this, and made sure that all our filter denials are being
logged. I then selected one of the download links from the vendor site from both
Netscape and Internet Explorer. Nothing. The request goes out and no reply ever
comes back (from the browser point of view; the filter log sees lots of
activity, but none of it appears to include an attempt to send a file).

There are no denials logged whatsoever. This is not an authority issue -- I'm
able to access this site and download the files on my laptop outside our
network. Further, this morning I was able to retrieve one of these files through
our network from a partner FTP site, so we definitely have FTP up and running.

But what I did finally notice in the log was that the proxy request generated
when I press Enter on the download link from the vendor had a null document name
with null length. And, of course, the proxy request generated for the alternate
site did include the URL as the document name.

So, I believe nothing is coming back from the vendor site because we are
generating a null request. The question is why? The only possible reason I can
see is that the URL for the vendor site is much longer than the one that worked
-- it also includes lots of parameters being passed along. Also, we used these
links successfully up until sometime in December. Coincidentally (!) we
installed V4R4 in mid-December.

Does anyone know if there is some setting somewhere -- in TCPIP, Client Access,
the browser, OS400 -- that limits the size of a URL for a proxy request? Or, can
someone suggest other possibilities to check for resolving this problem? The
vendor thinks perhaps our proxy server doesn't like some of the CGI routines
they're using, but I would think we'd see some errors coming back if that were
the case.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Janet Elam Crowley
IFA Systems






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