Varnish 3 varnishadm

[snow0x2d0]

Looks like there may have been a typo in the section for varnish 3 and using varnish adm. The line was using 'ban req.http.url' instead of 'req.url'.

[linickx]

Hello,

The syntax came from.... https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/3.0/tutorial/purging.html, the example given in the tutorial is:

ban req.http.host == "example.com" && req.http.url ~ "\.png$"

as it happens, both commands appear to work...

[nick@server ~]$ rpm -qa | grep varnish
varnish-release-3.0-1
varnish-3.0.2-1.el5
varnish-libs-3.0.2-1.el5
[nick@server ~]$ 
[nick@server ~]$ sudo varnishadm 
200        
-----------------------------
Varnish Cache CLI 1.0
-----------------------------
Linux,2.6.35.4-rscloud,x86_64,-sfile,-smalloc,-hcritbit

Type 'help' for command list.
Type 'quit' to close CLI session.

varnish> ban req.http.url ~ /robots.txt && req.http.host == www.linickx.com
200        

varnish> ban req.url ~ /robots.txt && req.http.host == www.linickx.com
200        

varnish>
varnish> quit
500        
Closing CLI connection
[nick@server ~]$

Kind Regards,
Nick

[snow0x2d0]

Greetings,

I perhaps was incorrect in describing it as a typo (I was unaware of the req.http.url syntax). After a bit more research it does seem that req.url and req.http.url are intended to be synonymous. In practice however it does not appear that req.http.url behaves as expected when provided as a parameter to the 'ban' method via the varnishadm utility. When this patch was submitted it was after the method did not appear to clear the cache despite varnishadm returning a 200. I have verified this again with a fresh install of varnish 3.0.2:

Varnish configured on 6081 with localhost 80 as the backend, with the object already in the cache:

snowman@snowman-VirtualBox:~$ wget localhost:6081 -O /dev/null -S
--snip--
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 02:24:33 GMT
X-Varnish: 879903476 879903472
Age: 8
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: close

While the ban is accepted using the req.http.url field name:
varnish> ban req.http.url ~ "^/$"
200

It does not appear to actually purge:

snowman@snowman-VirtualBox:~$ wget localhost:6081 -O /dev/null -S
--snip--
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 02:24:38 GMT
X-Varnish: 879903477 879903472
Age: 13
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: close

However when cached again:

snowman@snowman-VirtualBox:~$ wget localhost:6081 -O /dev/null -S
--snip--
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 02:27:52 GMT
X-Varnish: 879903480 879903478
Age: 4
Via: 1.1 varnish

And purged using req.url:

varnish> ban req.url ~ "^/$"
200

snowman@snowman-VirtualBox:~$ wget localhost:6081 -O /dev/null -S
--snip--
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 02:28:13 GMT
X-Varnish: 879903481
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish

So while the documentation shows it and varnishadm allows it, req.http.url does not seem to result in a ban or removal from the cache. There could be something I'm missing of course so if there's something I've overlooked please let me know as I'd rather not have a broken patch with name on it :D

[linickx]

Good Morning,

Nice work! I have runs some tests with curl ( to rule out any wget funnies) and I can confirm the same symptoms.

[nick@server ~]$ curl -I http://www.linickx.com/robots.txt
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Last-Modified: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:18:03 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=86400
Expires: Thu, 31 May 2012 07:59:11 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 08:28:40 GMT
X-Varnish: 632459904 632459710
Age: 1769
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: close
X-Cache: cached

[nick@server ~]$
[nick@server ~]$ sudo varnishadm
200        
-----------------------------
Varnish Cache CLI 1.0
-----------------------------
Linux,2.6.35.4-rscloud,x86_64,-sfile,-smalloc,-hcritbit

Type 'help' for command list.
Type 'quit' to close CLI session.

varnish> ban req.http.url ~ /robots.txt && req.http.host == www.linickx.com
200        

varnish> 
varnish> ban req.http.url ~ /robots.txt && req.http.host == www.linickx.com
200        

varnish> quit
500        
Closing CLI connection
[nick@server ~]$
[nick@server ~]$ curl -I http://www.linickx.com/robots.txt
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Last-Modified: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:18:03 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=86400
Expires: Thu, 31 May 2012 07:58:50 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 08:28:47 GMT
X-Varnish: 1222087994 1222087837
Age: 1797
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: close
X-Cache: cached

[nick@server ~]$
[nick@server ~]$ sudo varnishadm
200        
-----------------------------
Varnish Cache CLI 1.0
-----------------------------
Linux,2.6.35.4-rscloud,x86_64,-sfile,-smalloc,-hcritbit

Type 'help' for command list.
Type 'quit' to close CLI session.

varnish> ban req.url ~ /robots.txt && req.http.host == www.linickx.com
200        

varnish>varnish> quit
500        
Closing CLI connection
[nick@server ~]$
[nick@server ~]$ curl -I http://www.linickx.com/robots.txt
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Last-Modified: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:18:03 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=86400
Expires: Thu, 31 May 2012 08:32:50 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 08:32:50 GMT
X-Varnish: 1222088005
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: close
x-Cache: uncached

[nick@server ~]$

At this stage, I'm guessing you have have found a varnish bug :)