EasySSO SAML Authenticator with Redirect Binding - Request header is too large

EasySSO SAML Authenticator unable to login and returning an IllegalArgumentException "Request header is too large"

Symptoms:

  • EasySSO is installed and you are using the SAML authenticator

  • SAML Login Redirect binding is being used

  • When logging in, the user is unable to login and the following exception appears on the screen

    java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Request header is too large 

Cause:

Information inside the request header is too large for the Apache Tomcat webserver or application server. A likely cause is using encryption or if large amounts of data is included for groups

How to resolve the issue:

Use the POST binding type for SAML login.

Alternative

Configure the connection maxHttpHeaderSize for the apache server. Atlassian documentation can be found here