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iisasp-classiciis-metabase

Should AspBufferLimit ever need to be increased from the default of 4 MB?


A fellow developer recently requested that the AspBufferLimit in IIS 6 be increased from the default value of 4 MB to around 200 MB for streaming larger ZIP files.

Having left the Classic ASP world some time ago, I was scratching my head as to why you'd want to buffer a BinaryWrite and simply suggested setting Response.Buffer = false. But is there any case where you'd really need to make it 50x the default size?

Obviously, memory consumption would be the biggest worry. Are there other concerns with changing this default setting?


Solution

  • Increasing the buffer like that is a supremely bad idea. You would allow every visitor to your site to use up to that amount of ram. If your BinaryWrite/Response.Buffer=false solution doesn't appease him, you could also suggest that he call Response.Flush() now and then. Either would be preferable to increasing the buffer size.

    In fact, unless you have a very good reason you shouldn't even pass this through the asp processor. Write it to a special place on disk set aside for such things and redirect there instead.