nginx-ingress-controller: 413 Entity Too Large despite configuring 10g limits

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I’m experiencing persistent 413 “Entity Too Large” errors when trying to upload files larger than 500MB through my Odoo 18.0 application running on Kubernetes with nginx-ingress-controller v1.8.1. Despite configuring both global ConfigMap settings and Ingress-specific annotations for 10GB uploads, the error persists.

Cluster information:

Kubernetes version: 1.29+
Cloud being used: Bare-metal (not on a public cloud)
Installation method: kubeadm
Host OS: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
CNI and version: Calico
CRI and version: containerd

Additional components:

  • nginx-ingress-controller v1.8.1
  • MetalLB LoadBalancer
  • cert-manager for TLS

Problem Details

Current Configuration:

1. ingress-nginx-controller ConfigMap:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: ingress-nginx-controller
  namespace: ingress-nginx
data:
  client-max-body-size: "10g"
  client-body-buffer-size: "8m"
  client-body-timeout: "1800"
  proxy-body-size: "10g"
  proxy-read-timeout: "7200"
  proxy-send-timeout: "7200"
  proxy-connect-timeout: "600"
  proxy-request-buffering: "off"

2. Ingress Configuration:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: odoo-demo-18-ingress
  namespace: ns-demo-18
  annotations:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-body-size: "10g"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/client-max-body-size: "10g"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-read-timeout: "7200"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-send-timeout: "7200"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-request-buffering: "off"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/client-body-buffer-size: "8m"
    cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt-prod
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/ssl-redirect: "true"
spec:
  ingressClassName: nginx
  rules:
  - host: demo18.bytesraw.com
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Prefix
        backend:
          service:
            name: odoo-demo-18
            port:
              number: 8069

What I’ve tried:

  1. Applied global ConfigMap settings with client-max-body-size: "10g"
  2. Added Ingress annotations for body size limits
  3. Restarted ingress-nginx-controller multiple times after configuration changes
  4. Verified ConfigMap is applied correctly
  5. Attempted server-snippet approach to force settings directly

Current nginx config shows conflicting entries:

kubectl exec -n ingress-nginx deployment/ingress-nginx-controller -- nginx -T | grep -i "client_max_body_size"

Results in:

  • Some entries: client_max_body_size 10g; :white_check_mark:
  • Some entries: client_max_body_size 0; :cross_mark:
  • One entry: client_max_body_size 21M; :cross_mark:

Error Logs:

# Ingress Controller Log:
10.244.0.1 - - [18/Jul/2025:18:52:59 +0000] "POST /odooupgrade/submit HTTP/2.0" 413 171

# Odoo Application Log:  
2025-07-18 18:52:59,935 33 INFO test werkzeug: 10.244.0.1 - - [18/Jul/2025 18:52:59] "POST /odooupgrade/submit HTTP/1.1" 413

Questions:

  1. Why are there multiple conflicting client_max_body_size directives in the nginx config?
  2. How can I ensure the 10g limit is applied consistently across all server blocks?
  3. Could SSL termination or MetalLB be interfering with the body size limits?

Expected: Files up to 10GB should upload successfully
Actual: Files over 500MB fail with 413 error immediately

Any help would be greatly appreciated!