nginx erroneously reports period character as illegal in request headers

[Maxim Dounin]

Hello!

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 07:05:43PM -0400, mblancett wrote:

> Nginx is reporting invalid incoming headers with RFC-compliant headers that
> use a '.' (meaning, a period) within the name. 

Yes.  Because, while being RFC-complaint, these headers cause 
various problems, some are listed here:

http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx/2010-January/018271.html

As such, nginx reports these headers as invalid and ignores them.  
Details on which headers are considered valid can be found here:

http://nginx.org/r/ignore_invalid_headers

[...]

> I am aware that I can allow illegal requests, but standards compliance is a
> strict requirement in our enterprise.

No, you can't allow illegal requests.  You can, however, switch 
off "ignore_invalid_headers", so nginx will accept and use headers 
with any characters.

-- 
Maxim Dounin
http://mdounin.ru/