Question

I understand that the first call to getParameter will read the postdata content, if any.

Is there a way for me to limit how much postdata content would be processed into the RAM, or am I going to need to override the getParameter* methods for that to be accomplished?

I am not interested in making this a server-wide setting.

Answer 1

or am I going to need to override the getParameter methods for that to be accomplished?*

Yes.

For that you can use a homegrown HttpServletRequestWrapper which is injected by a Filter.

@Override
public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
    chain.doFilter(new MyPostDataLimitingRequest((HttpServletRequest) request), response);
}