Logged-in users
Hi, I have a site where users can log in. This sets a cookie with their encrypted login details, so they can be authenticated. There are a small number of pages which are user-specific (change your details forms, etc), and these are set not to cache. When a user is logged in, a message is shown at the top of the page You are now logged in. However, nothing on the page depends on the individual user. My question is, how can I organise the cache to have the most cache hits, given that there are effectively two versions of each page - one for logged in users, and one for anonymous users. Thanks, Miles ___ varnish-misc mailing list varnish-misc@projects.linpro.no http://projects.linpro.no/mailman/listinfo/varnish-misc
Logged-in users
Hi, I have a site where users can log in. This sets a cookie with their encrypted login details, so they can be authenticated. There are a small number of pages which are user-specific (change your details forms, etc), and these are set not to cache. When a user is logged in, a message is shown at the top of the page You are now logged in. However, nothing on the page depends on the individual user. My question is, how can I organise the cache to have the most cache hits, given that there are effectively two versions of each page - one for logged in users, and one for anonymous users. I want to specifically avoid each user having their own version of the page stored in the cache. Thanks in advance for any wisdom anyone can share! Miles ___ varnish-misc mailing list varnish-misc@projects.linpro.no http://projects.linpro.no/mailman/listinfo/varnish-misc
Re: Logged-in users
Miles wrote:
Hi,
I have a site where users can log in. This sets a cookie with their
encrypted login details, so they can be authenticated. There are a
small number of pages which are user-specific (change your details
forms, etc), and these are set not to cache.
When a user is logged in, a message is shown at the top of the page You
are now logged in. However, nothing on the page depends on the
individual user.
My question is, how can I organise the cache to have the most cache
hits, given that there are effectively two versions of each page - one
for logged in users, and one for anonymous users. I want to
specifically avoid each user having their own version of the page stored
in the cache.
Thanks in advance for any wisdom anyone can share!
Miles
Thanks to everyone who suggested using ESI - I may have to use this, but
would quite like to avoid it, as it's useful to be able to run the app
without varnish in front for development/testing.
I wondered whether it was possible to use vcl_hash for my purposes, as
follows:
sub vcl_hash {
//hash the object with url+host
set req.hash += req.url;
set req.hash += req.http.host;
# see if the user has a cookie to indicate they are logged in
if req.http.cookie ~ '__ac=':
set req.hash += 'authenticated';
else:
set req.hash += 'anonymous'
hash;
}
Would this give me the two representations that I require for each page
- or am I going down a route that will turn out bad?! I couldn't find
much information about vcl_hash, so I'm not sure if I'm barking up the
wrong tree or not...
Regards,
Miles
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varnish cache keys
Hi, Can someone confirm the default behaviour of varnish in terms of it's cache keys? By default - and without a vary header - is the cache keyed on hostname and url only? If a vary header is added, then the cache also uses those headers to key the request. Specifically, are cookies are ignored by the cache unless specified in the vary header or special behaviour in VCL? I'm trying to understand why we get a low level of cache hits, and want to be certain of the facts. Thanks, Miles ___ varnish-misc mailing list varnish-misc@projects.linpro.no http://projects.linpro.no/mailman/listinfo/varnish-misc
caching using ETags to vary the content
Hi I am using varnish 2.0-beta-2. I am using varnish to cache a website where there is a small amount of personalised content in a particular directory. When the user is outside of that directory, the only difference for logged-in and non-logged-in users is a few links (e.g. login/register or view profile/logout - the targets are the same irrespective of which user). I am trying to come up with a cache setup to deal with this. How I had planned to deal with this was as follows: - set an ETag (e.g. logged-in or anon) depending on whether the user is logged in or not; - add a Vary: ETag header, so varnish stores several representations - in varnish, set an ETag header on the request when it is received, depending on if the user is authenticated or not (can be determined by the presence of a cookie). the request should then match the correct page in the cache. I know varnish doesn't do If-None-Match, but I don't think that is a problem in this scheme. I haven't attempted this yet - can anyone see any holes in it as a method? Or does anyone else have a way of dealing with this sort of personalisation-lite?! Thanks in advance for your help! Miles ___ varnish-misc mailing list varnish-misc@projects.linpro.no http://projects.linpro.no/mailman/listinfo/varnish-misc
varnish in front of load balancer
Hi, Second question - we are running varnish in front of a load balander. The load balancer has stickiness - requests go to the same backend server each time, unless that server goes down. The stickiness is provided by a cookie which is set on the first request, and then read to direct the request to the right backend. What I want to do is ignore these cookies when trying to decide whether the request can be served from the cache or not - but if it can't be served from the cache, then pass the cookies on. I've seen examples on completely ignoring cookies, but not that cover this case. Thanks in advance, Miles ___ varnish-misc mailing list varnish-misc@projects.linpro.no http://projects.linpro.no/mailman/listinfo/varnish-misc
Re: Conditional GET (was Re: caching using ETags to vary the content)
Ryan Tomayko wrote: On 11/4/08 12:51 PM, Miles wrote: I know varnish doesn't do If-None-Match, but I don't think that is a problem in this scheme. I'm curious to understand why Varnish doesn't do validation / conditional GET. Has If-Modified-Since/If-None-Match support been considered and rejected on merit or is it something that could theoretically be accepted into the project? Has it just not received any real interest? Personally, I'd love to see support for conditional GET as this can significantly reduce backend resource use when the backend generates cache validators upfront and 304's without generating the full response. Ryan AFAIK varnish does do if-modified-since, just not if-none-match Miles ___ varnish-misc mailing list varnish-misc@projects.linpro.no http://projects.linpro.no/mailman/listinfo/varnish-misc
