lacquer
Rails drop in for Varnish support. This version is adapted from Russ Smith’s gem and is in production use on posterous.com.
Install
Basic installation
sudo gem install posterous-lacquer
config/initializers/lacquer.rb
Lacquer.configure do |config|
# Globally enable/disable cache
config.enable_cache = true
# Unless overridden in a controller or action, the default will be used
config.default_ttl = 1.week
# Can be :none, :delayed_job, :resque
config.job_backend = :none
# Array of Varnish servers to manage
config.varnish_servers << {
:host => '0.0.0.0', :port => 6082
}
# Number of retries
config.retries = 5
# config handler (optional, if you use Hoptoad or another error tracking service)
config.command_error_handler = lambda {|s| HoptoadNotifier.notify(s) }
end
app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
include Lacquer::CacheUtils
end
Usage
To set a custom ttl for a controller:
before_filter { |controller| controller.set_cache_ttl(15.minutes) }
Clearing the cache:
class Posts < ApplicationController
after_filter :clear_cache, :only => [ :create, :update, :destroy ]
private
def clear_cache
clear_cache_for(
root_path,
posts_path,
post_path(@post))
end
end
Gotchas
The default TTL for most actions is set to 0, since for most cases you’ll probably want to be fairly explicit about what pages do get cached by varnish. The default cache header is typically
Cache-Control: max-age=0, no-cache, private
This is good for normal controller actions, since you won’t want to cache them. If TTL for an action is set to 0, it won’t mess with the default header.
The key gotcha here is that cached pages strip cookies, so if your application relies on sessions and uses authenticity tokens, the user will need a session cookie set before form actions will work. Setting default TTL to 0 here will make sure these session cookies won’t break.
As a result, all you have to do to set a cacheable action is the before filter above.
VCL config
backend default {
.host = "127.0.0.1";
.port = "8282";
.max_connections = 2000;
.connect_timeout = 600s;
.first_byte_timeout = 600s;
.between_bytes_timeout = 600s;
}
sub vcl_hash {
### these 2 entries are the default ones used for vcl. Below we add our own.
set req.hash += req.url;
set req.hash += req.http.host;
if (req.http.cookie ~ "mobile_view=true") {
set req.hash += "mobile";
}
if (req.http.user-agent ~ "(?i)palm|blackberry|nokia|phone|midp|mobi|symbian|chtml|ericsson|minimo|audiovox|motorola|samsung|telit|upg1|windows ce|ucweb|astel|plucker|x320|x240|j2me|sgh|portable|sprint|docomo|kddi|softbank|android|mmp|pdxgw|netfront|xiino|vodafone|portalmmm|sagem|mot-|sie-|ipod|up\\.b|webos|amoi|novarra|cdm|alcatel|pocket|iphone|mobileexplorer|mobile" && !(req.http.user-agent ~ "(?i)ipad") && !(req.http.cookie ~ "full_site=true")) {
set req.hash += "mobile";
}
return(hash);
}
#
# Handling of requests that are received from clients.
# First decide whether or not to lookup data in the cache.
#
sub vcl_recv {
# Pipe requests that are non-RFC2616 or CONNECT which is weird.
if (req.request != "GET" &&
req.request != "HEAD" &&
req.request != "PUT" &&
req.request != "POST" &&
req.request != "TRACE" &&
req.request != "OPTIONS" &&
req.request != "DELETE") {
return(pipe);
}
# Pass requests that are not GET or HEAD
if (req.request != "GET" && req.request != "HEAD") {
return(pass);
}
# Pass requests for blog pages greater than page 3
if (req.url ~ "page=([4-9]|[1-9][0-9]+)$") {
return(pass);
}
# Pass requests that we know we aren't caching
if (req.url ~ "^/admin") {
return(pass);
}
if (req.url ~ "\/private\/") {
return(pass);
}
#
# Everything below here should be cached
#
# Handle compression correctly. Varnish treats headers literally, not
# semantically. So it is very well possible that there are cache misses
# because the headers sent by different browsers aren't the same.
# @see: http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/wiki/FAQ/Compression
if (req.http.Accept-Encoding) {
if (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "gzip") {
# if the browser supports it, we'll use gzip
set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "gzip";
} elsif (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "deflate") {
# next, try deflate if it is supported
set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "deflate";
} else {
# unknown algorithm. Probably junk, remove it
remove req.http.Accept-Encoding;
}
}
# Set grace time, lookup in the cache
set req.grace = 1s;
return(lookup);
}
#
# Called when entering pipe mode
#
sub vcl_pipe {
# If we don't set the Connection: close header, any following
# requests from the client will also be piped through and
# left untouched by varnish. We don't want that.
set req.http.connection = "close";
return(pipe);
}
#
# Called when the requested object has been retrieved from the
# backend, or the request to the backend has failed
#
sub vcl_fetch {
esi;
# Do not cache the object if the backend application does not want us to.
if (beresp.http.Cache-Control ~ "(no-cache|no-store|private|must-revalidate)") {
return(pass);
}
# Do not cache the object if the status is not in the 200s
if (beresp.status >= 300) {
return(pass);
}
#
# Everything below here should be cached
#
if (req.url ~ "\/posts\/comments") {
set beresp.ttl = 0s;
}
# Remove the Set-Cookie header
remove beresp.http.Set-Cookie;
# Set the grace time
set beresp.grace = 1s;
if (req.url ~ "\.(css|js|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico|png)\??\d*$") {
/* Remove Expires from backend, it's not long enough */
unset beresp.http.expires;
/* Set the clients TTL on this object */
set beresp.http.cache-control = "public, max-age=31536000";
/* marker for vcl_deliver to reset Age: */
set beresp.http.magicmarker = "1";
} else {
set beresp.http.Cache-Control = "private, max-age=0, must-revalidate";
set beresp.http.Pragma = "no-cache";
}
# return(deliver); the object
return(deliver);
}
sub vcl_deliver {
if (resp.http.magicmarker) {
/* Remove the magic marker */
unset resp.http.magicmarker;
/* By definition we have a fresh object */
set resp.http.age = "0";
}
# Add a header to indicate a cache HIT/MISS
if (obj.hits > 0) {
set resp.http.X-Cache = "HIT";
} else {
set resp.http.X-Cache = "MISS";
}
}
Note on Patches/Pull Requests
-
Fork the project.
-
Make your feature addition or bug fix.
-
Add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.
-
Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)
-
Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 Russ Smith. See LICENSE for details.