Exceptions on App GW header field size limit ?

GONZALEZ ROMERO Juan Carlos 0 Reputation points
2026-07-13T13:39:50.5533333+00:00

Hello all,

we have this situation where our application is behind App GW & WAF. For a particular query, the API needs to send a oslc.select field weighting 14kb (with the total header being 15kb) - so we are hitting the 8kb per field limitation on Azure.
Is there any way to bypass this limitation so the query does work ?

Thanks in advance.

Azure Application Gateway
Azure Application Gateway

An Azure service that provides a platform-managed, scalable, and highly available application delivery controller as a service.


2 answers

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  1. Vinodh247-1375 43,586 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2026-07-13T17:32:47.6966667+00:00

    Hi ,

    Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

    No, you cannot bypass or increase the 8 KB per header field limit in azure application gateway, it is a hard platform constraint (applies regardless of WAF on/off). This is not configurable. The only viable approach is to redesign the request: move the large oslc.select payload out of headers into the request body (POST instead of GET), compress or shorten the field, or pass a reference/token that the backend resolves. If you must keep large headers, you need to avoid app gateway entirely (ex: route via azure front door or a custom proxy), but even then downstream services may enforce similar limits, so redesign is the realistic fix.

    Please 'Upvote'(Thumbs-up) and 'Accept' as answer if the reply was helpful. This will be benefitting other community members who face the same issue.

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  2. Christos Panagiotidis 3,301 Reputation points
    2026-07-14T08:45:51.9166667+00:00

    Hi, Application Gateway's header limits are platform limits; there is not normally a per-listener exception you can request. First identify whether the failure is one oversized header (often Cookie or Authorization) or the total request headers by capturing the gateway access log/status and a sanitized request. The durable fix is to reduce the header: trim cookies, avoid putting large claims/groups in tokens, use server-side session state, or send only the claims the backend needs. A rewrite rule can remove an unnecessary header, but it cannot help if the gateway rejects the request before rewrite processing. If the documented limit and observed behavior disagree, open a support case with a minimal reproduction and correlation/request ID.

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