Name
ngx_srcache - Transparent subrequest-based caching layout for arbitrary nginx locations
This module is not distributed with the Nginx source. See the installation instructions.
Table of Contents
- Name
- Status
- Version
- Synopsis
- Description
- Directives
- srcache_fetch
- srcache_fetch_skip
- srcache_store
- srcache_store_max_size
- srcache_store_skip
- srcache_store_statuses
- srcache_store_ranges
- srcache_header_buffer_size
- srcache_store_hide_header
- srcache_store_pass_header
- srcache_methods
- srcache_ignore_content_encoding
- srcache_request_cache_control
- srcache_response_cache_control
- srcache_store_no_store
- srcache_store_no_cache
- srcache_store_private
- srcache_default_expire
- srcache_max_expire
- Variables
- Known Issues
- Caveats
- Trouble Shooting
- Installation
- Compatibility
- Community
- Bugs and Patches
- Source Repository
- Test Suite
- TODO
- Getting involved
- Author
- Copyright & License
- See Also
Status
This module is production ready.
Version
This document describes srcache-nginx-module v0.31 released on 15 May 2016.
Synopsis
upstream my_memcached {
server 10.62.136.7:11211;
keepalive 10;
}
location = /memc {
internal;
memc_connect_timeout 100ms;
memc_send_timeout 100ms;
memc_read_timeout 100ms;
memc_ignore_client_abort on;
set $memc_key $query_string;
set $memc_exptime 300;
memc_pass my_memcached;
}
location /foo {
set $key $uri$args;
srcache_fetch GET /memc $key;
srcache_store PUT /memc $key;
srcache_store_statuses 200 301 302;
# proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/drizzle_pass/echo/etc...
# or even static files on the disk
}
location = /memc2 {
internal;
memc_connect_timeout 100ms;
memc_send_timeout 100ms;
memc_read_timeout 100ms;
memc_ignore_client_abort on;
set_unescape_uri $memc_key $arg_key;
set $memc_exptime $arg_exptime;
memc_pass unix:/tmp/memcached.sock;
}
location /bar {
set_escape_uri $key $uri$args;
srcache_fetch GET /memc2 key=$key;
srcache_store PUT /memc2 key=$key&exptime=$srcache_expire;
# proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/drizzle_pass/echo/etc...
# or even static files on the disk
}
map $request_method $skip_fetch {
default 0;
POST 1;
PUT 1;
}
server {
listen 8080;
location /api/ {
set $key "$uri?$args";
srcache_fetch GET /memc $key;
srcache_store PUT /memc $key;
srcache_methods GET PUT POST;
srcache_fetch_skip $skip_fetch;
# proxy_pass/drizzle_pass/content_by_lua/echo/...
}
}
Description
This module provides a transparent caching layer for arbitrary nginx locations (like those use an upstream or even serve static disk files). The caching behavior is mostly compatible with RFC 2616.
Usually, memc-nginx-module is used together with this module to provide a concrete caching storage backend. But technically, any modules that provide a REST interface can be used as the fetching and storage subrequests used by this module.
For main requests, the srcache_fetch directive works at the end of the access phase, so the standard access module's allow and deny direcives run before ours, which is usually the desired behavior for security reasons.
The workflow of this module looks like below:
Subrequest caching
For subrequests, we explicitly disallow the use of this module because it's too difficult to get right. There used to be an implementation but it was buggy and I finally gave up fixing it and abandoned it.
However, if you're using lua-nginx-module, it's easy to do subrequest caching in Lua all by yourself. That is, first issue a subrequest to an memc-nginx-module location to do an explicit cache lookup, if cache hit, just use the cached data returned; otherwise, fall back to the true backend, and finally do a cache insertion to feed the data into the cache.
Using this module for main request caching and Lua for subrequest caching is the approach that we're taking in our business. This hybrid solution works great in production.
Distributed Memcached Caching
Here is a simple example demonstrating a distributed memcached caching mechanism built atop this module. Suppose we do have three different memcached nodes and we use simple modulo to hash our keys.
http {
upstream moon {
server 10.62.136.54:11211;
server unix:/tmp/memcached.sock backup;
}
upstream earth {
server 10.62.136.55:11211;
}
upstream sun {
server 10.62.136.56:11211;
}
upstream_list universe moon earth sun;
server {
memc_connect_timeout 100ms;
memc_send_timeout 100ms;
memc_read_timeout 100ms;
location = /memc {
internal;
set $memc_key $query_string;
set_hashed_upstream $backend universe $memc_key;
set $memc_exptime 3600; # in seconds
memc_pass $backend;
}
location / {
set $key $uri;
srcache_fetch GET /memc $key;
srcache_store PUT /memc $key;
# proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/content_by_lua/drizzle_pass/...
}
}
}
Here's what is going on in the sample above:
1. We first define three upstreams, moon
, earth
, and sun
. These are our three memcached servers.
1. And then we group them together as an upstream list entity named universe
with the upstream_list
directive provided by set-misc-nginx-module.
1. After that, we define an internal location named /memc
for talking to the memcached cluster.
1. In this /memc
location, we first set the $memc_key
variable with the query string ($args
), and then use the set_hashed_upstream directive to hash our $memc_key over the upsteam list universe
, so as to obtain a concrete upstream name to be assigned to the variable $backend
.
1. We pass this $backend
variable into the memc_pass directive. The $backend
variable can hold a value among moon
, earth
, and sun
.
1. Also, we define the memcached caching expiration time to be 3600 seconds (i.e., an hour) by overriding the $memc_exptime variable.
1. In our main public location /
, we configure the $uri
variable as our cache key, and then configure srcache_fetch for cache lookups and srcache_store for cache updates. We're using two subrequests to our /memc
location defined earlier in these two directives.
One can use lua-nginx-module's set_by_lua or rewrite_by_lua directives to inject custom Lua code to compute the $backend
and/or $key
variables in the sample above.
One thing that should be taken care of is that memcached does have restriction on key lengths, i.e., 250 bytes, so for keys that may be very long, one could use the set_md5 directive or its friends to pre-hash the key to a fixed-length digest before assigning it to $memc_key
in the /memc
location or the like.
Further, one can utilize the srcache_fetch_skip and srcache_store_skip directives to control what to cache and what not on a per-request basis, and Lua can also be used here in a similar way. So the possibility is really unlimited.
To maximize speed, we often enable TCP (or Unix Domain Socket) connection pool for our memcached upstreams provided by HttpUpstreamKeepaliveModule, for example,
upstream moon {
server 10.62.136.54:11211;
server unix:/tmp/memcached.sock backup;
keepalive 10;
}
where we define a connection pool which holds up to 10 keep-alive connections (per nginx worker process) for our moon
upstream (cluster).
Caching with Redis
Redis is an alternative key-value store with many additional features.
Here is a working example by using Redis:
location /api {
default_type text/css;
set $key $uri;
set_escape_uri $escaped_key $key;
srcache_fetch GET /redis $key;
srcache_store PUT /redis2 key=$escaped_key&exptime=120;
# fastcgi_pass/proxy_pass/drizzle_pass/postgres_pass/echo/etc
}
location = /redis {
internal;
set_md5 $redis_key $args;
redis_pass 127.0.0.1:6379;
}
location = /redis2 {
internal;
set_unescape_uri $exptime $arg_exptime;
set_unescape_uri $key $arg_key;
set_md5 $key;
redis2_query set $key $echo_request_body;
redis2_query expire $key $exptime;
redis2_pass 127.0.0.1:6379;
}
This example makes use of the $echo_request_body variable provided by echo-nginx-module. Note that you need the latest version of echo-nginx-module, v0.38rc2
because earlier versions may not work reliably.
Also, you need both HttpRedisModule and redis2-nginx-module. The former is used in the srcache_fetch subrequest and the latter is used in the srcache_store subrequest.
The Nginx core also has a bug that could prevent redis2-nginx-module's pipelining support from working properly in certain extreme conditions. And the following patch fixes this:
http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx-devel/2012-March/002040.html
Note that, however, if you are using the OpenResty 1.0.15.3 bundle or later, then you already have everything that you need here in the bundle.
Cache Key Preprocessing
It is often desired to preprocess the cache key to exclude random noises that may hurt the cache hit rate. For example, random session IDs in the URI arguments are usually desired to get removed.
Consider the following URI querystring
SID=BC3781C3-2E02-4A11-89CF-34E5CFE8B0EF&UID=44332&L=EN&M=1&H=1&UNC=0&SRC=LK&RT=62
we want to remove the SID
and UID
arguments from it. It is easy to achieve if you use lua-nginx-module at the same time:
location = /t {
rewrite_by_lua '
local args = ngx.req.get_uri_args()
args.SID = nil
args.UID = nil
ngx.req.set_uri_args(args)
';
echo $args;
}
Here we use the echo directive from echo-nginx-module to dump out the final value of $args in the end. You can replace it with your srcache-nginx-module configurations and upstream configurations instead for your case. Let's test this /t interface with curl:
$ curl 'localhost:8081/t?RT=62&SID=BC3781C3-2E02-4A11-89CF-34E5CFE8B0EF&UID=44332&L=EN&M=1&H=1&UNC=0&SRC=LK'
M=1&UNC=0&RT=62&H=1&L=EN&SRC=LK
It is worth mentioning that, if you want to retain the order of the URI arguments, then you can do string substitutions on the value of $args directly, for example,
location = /t {
rewrite_by_lua '
local args = ngx.var.args
newargs, n, err = ngx.re.gsub(args, [[\b[SU]ID=[^&]*&?]], "", "jo")
if n and n > 0 then
ngx.var.args = newargs
end
';
echo $args;
}
Now test it with the original curl command again, we get exactly what we would expect:
RT=62&L=EN&M=1&H=1&UNC=0&SRC=LK
But for caching purposes, it's good to normalize the URI argument order so that you can increase the cache hit rate. And the hash table entry order used by LuaJIT or Lua can be used to normalize the order as a nice side effect.
Directives
srcache_fetch
syntax: srcache_fetch <method> <uri> <args>?
default: no
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: post-access
This directive registers an access phase handler that will issue an Nginx subrequest to lookup the cache.
When the subrequest returns status code other than 200
, than a cache miss is signaled and the control flow will continue to the later phases including the content phase configured by ngx_http_proxy_module, ngx_http_fastcgi_module, and others. If the subrequest returns 200 OK
, then a cache hit is signaled and this module will send the subrequest's response as the current main request's response to the client directly.
This directive will always run at the end of the access phase, such that ngx_http_access_module's allow and deny will always run before this.
You can use the srcache_fetch_skip directive to disable cache look-up selectively.
srcache_fetch_skip
syntax: srcache_fetch_skip <flag>
default: srcache_fetch_skip 0
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: post-access
The <flag>
argument supports nginx variables. When this argument's value is not empty and not equal to 0
, then the fetching process will be unconditionally skipped.
For example, to skip caching requests which have a cookie named foo
with the value bar
, we can write
location / {
set $key ...;
set_by_lua $skip '
if ngx.var.cookie_foo == "bar" then
return 1
end
return 0
';
srcache_fetch_skip $skip;
srcache_store_skip $skip;
srcache_fetch GET /memc $key;
srcache_store GET /memc $key;
# proxy_pass/fastcgi_pass/content_by_lua/...
}
where lua-nginx-module is used to calculate the value of the $skip
variable at the (earlier) rewrite phase. Similarly, the $key
variable can be computed by Lua using the set_by_lua or rewrite_by_lua directive too.
The standard map directive can also be used to compute the value of the $skip
variable used in the sample above:
map $cookie_foo $skip {
default 0;
bar 1;
}
but your map statement should be put into the http
config block in your nginx.conf
file though.
srcache_store
syntax: srcache_store <method> <uri> <args>?
default: no
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-filter
This directive registers an output filter handler that will issue an Nginx subrequest to save the response of the current main request into a cache backend. The status code of the subrequest will be ignored.
You can use the srcache_store_skip and srcache_store_max_size directives to disable caching for certain requests in case of a cache miss.
Since the v0.12rc7
release, both the response status line, response headers, and response bodies will be put into the cache. By default, the following special response headers will not be cached:
- Connection
- Keep-Alive
- Proxy-Authenticate
- Proxy-Authorization
- TE
- Trailers
- Transfer-Encoding
- Upgrade
- Set-Cookie
You can use the srcache_store_pass_header and/or srcache_store_hide_header directives to control what headers to cache and what not.
The original response's data chunks get emitted as soon as
they arrive. srcache_store
just copies and collects the data in an output filter without postponing them from being sent downstream.
But please note that even though all the response data will be sent immediately, the current Nginx request lifetime will not finish until the srcache_store subrequest completes. That means a delay in closing the TCP connection on the server side (when HTTP keepalive is disabled, but proper HTTP clients should close the connection actively on the client side, which adds no extra delay or other issues at all) or serving the next request sent on the same TCP connection (when HTTP keepalive is in action).
srcache_store_max_size
syntax: srcache_store_max_size <size>
default: srcache_store_max_size 0
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
When the response body length is exceeding this size, this module will not try to store the response body into the cache using the subrequest template that is specified in srcache_store.
This is particular useful when using a cache storage backend that does have a hard upper limit on the input data. For example, the Memcached server has a default limit of 1 MB
by item.
When 0
is specified (the default value), there's no limit check at all.
srcache_store_skip
syntax: srcache_store_skip <flag>
default: srcache_store_skip 0
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
The <flag>
argument supports Nginx variables. When this argument's value is not empty and not equal to 0
, then the storing process will be unconditionally skipped.
Starting from the v0.25
release, the <flag>
expression (possibly containing Nginx variables) can be evaluated up to twice: the first time is right after the response header is being sent and when the <flag>
expression is not evaluated to true values it will be evaluated again right after the end of the response body data stream is seen. Before v0.25
, only the first time evaluation is performed.
Here's an example using Lua to set $nocache to avoid storing URIs that contain the string "/tmp":
set_by_lua $nocache '
if string.match(ngx.var.uri, "/tmp") then
return 1
end
return 0';
srcache_store_skip $nocache;
srcache_store_statuses
syntax: srcache_store_statuses <status1> <status2> ..
default: srcache_store_statuses 200 301 302
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
This directive controls what responses to store to the cache according to their status code.
By default, only 200
, 301
, and 302
responses will be stored to cache and any other responses will skip srcache_store.
You can specify arbitrary positive numbers for the response status code that you'd like to cache, even including error code like 404
and 503
. For example:
srcache_store_statuses 200 201 301 302 404 503;
At least one argument should be given to this directive.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.13rc2
release.
srcache_store_ranges
syntax: srcache_store_ranges on|off
default: srcache_store_ranges off
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-body-filter
When this directive is turned on (default to off
), srcache_store will also store 206 Partial Content responses generated by the standard ngx_http_range_filter_module
. If you turn this directive on, you MUST add $http_range
to your cache keys. For example,
location / {
set $key "$uri$args$http_range";
srcache_fetch GET /memc $key;
srcache_store PUT /memc $key;
}
This directive was first introduced in the v0.27
release.
srcache_header_buffer_size
syntax: srcache_header_buffer_size <size>
default: srcache_header_buffer_size 4k/8k
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
This directive controles the header buffer when serializing response headers for srcache_store. The default size is the page size, usually 4k
or 8k
depending on specific platforms.
Note that the buffer is not used to hold all the response headers, but just each individual header. So the buffer is merely needed to be big enough to hold the longest response header.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
srcache_store_hide_header
syntax: srcache_store_hide_header <header>
default: no
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
By default, this module caches all the response headers except the following ones:
- Connection
- Keep-Alive
- Proxy-Authenticate
- Proxy-Authorization
- TE
- Trailers
- Transfer-Encoding
- Upgrade
- Set-Cookie
You can hide even more response headers from srcache_store by listing their names (case-insensitive) by means of this directive. For examples,
srcache_store_hide_header X-Foo;
srcache_store_hide_header Last-Modified;
Multiple occurrences of this directive are allowed in a single location.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
See also srcache_store_pass_header.
srcache_store_pass_header
syntax: srcache_store_pass_header <header>
default: no
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
By default, this module caches all the response headers except the following ones:
- Connection
- Keep-Alive
- Proxy-Authenticate
- Proxy-Authorization
- TE
- Trailers
- Transfer-Encoding
- Upgrade
- Set-Cookie
You can force srcache_store to store one or more of these response headers from srcache_store by listing their names (case-insensitive) by means of this directive. For examples,
srcache_store_pass_header Set-Cookie;
srcache_store_pass_header Proxy-Autenticate;
Multiple occurrences of this directive are allowed in a single location.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
See also srcache_store_hide_header.
srcache_methods
syntax: srcache_methods <method>...
default: srcache_methods GET HEAD
context: http, server, location
phase: post-access, output-header-filter
This directive specifies HTTP request methods that are considered by either srcache_fetch or srcache_store. HTTP request methods not listed will be skipped completely from the cache.
The following HTTP methods are allowed: GET
, HEAD
, POST
, PUT
, and DELETE
. The GET
and HEAD
methods are always implicitly included in the list regardless of their presence in this directive.
Note that since the v0.17
release HEAD
requests are always skipped by srcache_store because their responses never carry a response body.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
srcache_ignore_content_encoding
syntax: srcache_ignore_content_encoding on|off
default: srcache_ignore_content_encoding off
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
When this directive is turned off
(which is the default), non-empty Content-Encoding
response header will cause srcache_store skip storing the whole response into the cache and issue a warning into nginx's error.log
file like this:
[warn] 12500#0: *1 srcache_store skipped due to response header "Content-Encoding: gzip"
(maybe you forgot to disable compression on the backend?)
Turning on this directive will ignore the Content-Encoding
response header and store the response as usual (and also without warning).
It's recommended to always disable gzip/deflate compression on your backend server by specifying the following line in your nginx.conf
file:
proxy_set_header Accept-Encoding "";
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
srcache_request_cache_control
syntax: srcache_request_cache_control on|off
default: srcache_request_cache_control off
context: http, server, location
phase: post-access, output-header-filter
When this directive is turned on
, the request headers Cache-Control
and Pragma
will be honored by this module in the following ways:
- srcache_fetch, i.e., the cache lookup operation, will be skipped when request headers
Cache-Control: no-cache
and/orPragma: no-cache
are present. - srcache_store, i.e., the cache store operation, will be skipped when the request header
Cache-Control: no-store
is specified.
Turning off this directive will disable this functionality and is considered safer for busy sites mainly relying on cache for speed.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
See also srcache_response_cache_control.
srcache_response_cache_control
syntax: srcache_response_cache_control on|off
default: srcache_response_cache_control on
context: http, server, location
phase: output-header-filter
When this directive is turned on
, the response headers Cache-Control
and Expires
will be honored by this module in the following ways:
Cache-Control: private
skips srcache_store,Cache-Control: no-store
skips srcache_store,Cache-Control: no-cache
skips srcache_store,Cache-Control: max-age=0
skips srcache_store,- and
Expires: <date-no-more-recently-than-now>
skips srcache_store.
This directive takes priority over the srcache_store_no_store, srcache_store_no_cache, and srcache_store_private directives.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
See also srcache_request_cache_control.
srcache_store_no_store
syntax: srcache_store_no_store on|off
default: srcache_store_no_store off
context: http, server, location
phase: output-header-filter
Turning this directive on will force responses with the header Cache-Control: no-store
to be stored into the cache when srcache_response_cache_control is turned on
and other conditions are met. Default to off
.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
srcache_store_no_cache
syntax: srcache_store_no_cache on|off
default: srcache_store_no_cache off
context: http, server, location
phase: output-header-filter
Turning this directive on will force responses with the header Cache-Control: no-cache
to be stored into the cache when srcache_response_cache_control is turned on
and other conditions are met. Default to off
.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
srcache_store_private
syntax: srcache_store_private on|off
default: srcache_store_private off
context: http, server, location
phase: output-header-filter
Turning this directive on will force responses with the header Cache-Control: private
to be stored into the cache when srcache_response_cache_control is turned on
and other conditions are met. Default to off
.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
srcache_default_expire
syntax: srcache_default_expire <time>
default: srcache_default_expire 60s
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
This directive controls the default expiration time period that is allowed for the $srcache_expire variable value when neither Cache-Control: max-age=N
nor Expires
are specified in the response headers.
The <time>
argument values are in seconds by default. But it's wise to always explicitly specify the time unit to avoid confusion. Time units supported are "s"(seconds), "ms"(milliseconds), "y"(years), "M"(months), "w"(weeks), "d"(days), "h"(hours), and "m"(minutes). For example,
srcache_default_expire 30m; # 30 minutes
This time must be less than 597 hours.
The semantics of a zero expiration time depends on the actual cache backend storage you are currently using, which is agnostic to this module. In the case of memcached, for example, zero expiration times mean that the item will never expire.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
srcache_max_expire
syntax: srcache_max_expire <time>
default: srcache_max_expire 0
context: http, server, location, location if
phase: output-header-filter
This directive controls the maximal expiration time period that is allowed for the $srcache_expire variable value. This setting takes priority over other calculating methods.
The <time>
argument values are in seconds by default. But it's wise to always explicitly specify the time unit to avoid confusion. Time units supported are "s"(seconds), "ms"(milliseconds), "y"(years), "M"(months), "w"(weeks), "d"(days), "h"(hours), and "m"(minutes). For example,
srcache_max_expire 2h; # 2 hours
This time must be less than 597 hours.
When 0
is specified, which is the default setting, then there will be no limit at all.
This directive was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
Variables
$srcache_expire
type: integer
cacheable: no
writable: no
This Nginx variable gives the recommended expiration time period (in seconds) for the current response being stored into the cache. The algorithm of computing the value is as follows:
- When the response header
Cache-Control: max-age=N
is specified, thenN
will be used as the expiration time, - otherwise if the response header
Expires
is specified, then the expiration time will be obtained by subtracting the current time stamp from the time specified in theExpires
header, - when neither
Cache-Control: max-age=N
norExpires
headers are specified, use the value specified in the srcache_default_expire directive.
The final value of this variable will be the value specified by the srcache_max_expire directive if the value obtained in the algorithm above exceeds the maximal value (if any).
You don't have to use this variable for the expiration time.
This variable was first introduced in the v0.12rc7
release.
$srcache_fetch_status
type: string
cacheable: no
writable: no
This Nginx variable is evaluated to the status of the "fetch" phase for the caching system. Three values are possible, HIT
, MISS
, and BYPASS
.
When the "fetch" subrequest returns status code other than 200
or its response data is not well-formed, then this variable is evaluated to the value MISS
.
The value of this variable is only meaningful after the access
request processing phase, or BYPASS
is always given.
This variable was first introduced in the v0.14
release.
$srcache_store_status
type: string
cacheable: no
writable: no
This Nginx variable gives the current caching status for the "store" phase. Two possible values, STORE
and BYPASS
can be obtained.
Because the responses for the "store" subrequest are always discarded, so the value of this variable will always be STORE
as long as the "store" subrequest is actually issued.
The value of this variable is only meaningful at least when the request headers of the current (main) request are being sent. The final result can only be obtained after all the response body has been sent if the Content-Length
response header is not specified for the main request.
This variable was first introduced in the v0.14
release.
Known Issues
- On certain systems, enabling aio and/or sendfile may stop srcache_store from working. You can disable them in the locations configured by srcache_store.
- The srcache_store directive can not be used to capture the responses generated by echo-nginx-module's subrequest directivees like echo_subrequest_async and echo_location. You are recommended to use HttpLuaModule to initiate and capture subrequests, which should work with srcache_store.
Caveats
- It is recommended to disable your backend server's gzip compression and use nginx's ngx_http_gzip_module to do the job. In case of ngx_http_proxy_module, you can use the following configure setting to disable backend gzip compression:
proxy_set_header Accept-Encoding "";
- Do not use ngx_http_rewrite_module's if directive in the same location as this module's, because "if is evil". Instead, use ngx_http_map_module or lua-nginx-module combined with this module's srcache_store_skip and/or srcache_fetch_skip directives. For example:
map $request_method $skip_fetch {
default 0;
POST 1;
PUT 1;
}
server {
listen 8080;
location /api/ {
set $key "$uri?$args";
srcache_fetch GET /memc $key;
srcache_store PUT /memc $key;
srcache_methods GET PUT POST;
srcache_fetch_skip $skip_fetch;
# proxy_pass/drizzle_pass/content_by_lua/echo/...
}
}
Trouble Shooting
To debug issues, you should always check your Nginx error.log
file first. If no error messages are printed, you need to enable the Nginx debugging logs to get more details, as explained in debugging log.
Several common pitfalls for beginners:
- The original response carries a
Cache-Control
header that explicitly disables caching and you do not configure directives like srcache_response_cache_control. - The original response is already gzip compressed, which is not cached by default (see srcache_ignore_content_encoding).
- Memcached might return
CLIENT_ERROR bad command line format
when using a too long key (250 chars as of version 1.4.25). It is thus safer to useset_md5 $key $uri$args;
instead ofset $key $uri$args;
. Theset_md5
directive (and more) is available from OpenResty's set-misc module. - Nginx might return
client intended to send too large body
when trying to store objects larger than 1m to the storage backend, in which case nginxclient_max_body_size
must be set to a higher value. - Memcached might fail to store objects larger than 1m, causing errors like
srcache_store subrequest failed status=502
. Since version 1.4.2, memcached supports a command-line-I
option to override the default size of each slab page. Please read its manpage for more information.
Installation
It is recommended to install this module as well as the Nginx core and many other goodies via the OpenResty bundle. It is the easiest way and most safe way to set things up. See OpenResty's installation instructions for details.
Alternatively, you can build Nginx with this module all by yourself:
- Grab the nginx source code from nginx.org, for example, the version 1.9.15 (see Nginx Compatibility),
- and then apply the patch to your nginx source tree that fixes an important bug in the mainline Nginx core: https://raw.github.com/openresty/openresty/master/patches/nginx-1.4.3-upstream_truncation.patch (you do NOT need this patch if you are using nginx 1.5.3 and later versions.)
- after that, download the latest version of the release tarball of this module from srcache-nginx-module file list,
- and finally build the Nginx source with this module
wget 'http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.9.15.tar.gz'
tar -xzvf nginx-1.9.15.tar.gz
cd nginx-1.9.15/
# Here we assume you would install you nginx under /opt/nginx/.
./configure --prefix=/opt/nginx \
--add-module=/path/to/srcache-nginx-module
make -j2
make install
Starting from NGINX 1.9.11, you can also compile this module as a dynamic module, by using the --add-dynamic-module=PATH
option instead of --add-module=PATH
on the
./configure
command line above. And then you can explicitly load the module in your nginx.conf
via the load_module
directive, for example,
load_module /path/to/modules/ngx_http_srcache_filter_module.so;
Compatibility
The following versions of Nginx should work with this module:
- 1.9.x (last tested: 1.9.15)
- 1.8.x
- 1.7.x (last tested: 1.7.10)
- 1.5.x (last tested: 1.5.12)
- 1.4.x (last tested: 1.4.4)
- 1.3.x (last tested: 1.3.7)
- 1.2.x (last tested: 1.2.9)
- 1.1.x (last tested: 1.1.5)
- 1.0.x (last tested: 1.0.11)
- 0.9.x (last tested: 0.9.4)
- 0.8.x >= 0.8.54 (last tested: 0.8.54)
Earlier versions of Nginx like 0.7.x, 0.6.x and 0.5.x will not work.
If you find that any particular version of Nginx above 0.7.44 does not work with this module, please consider reporting a bug.
Community
English Mailing List
The openresty-en mailing list is for English speakers.
Chinese Mailing List
The openresty mailing list is for Chinese speakers.
Bugs and Patches
Please submit bug reports, wishlists, or patches by
- creating a ticket on the GitHub Issue Tracker,
- or posting to the OpenResty community.
Source Repository
Available on github at openresty/srcache-nginx-module.
Test Suite
This module comes with a Perl-driven test suite. The test cases are declarative too. Thanks to the Test::Nginx module in the Perl world.
To run it on your side:
$ PATH=/path/to/your/nginx-with-srcache-module:$PATH prove -r t
You need to terminate any Nginx processes before running the test suite if you have changed the Nginx server binary.
Because a single nginx server (by default, localhost:1984
) is used across all the test scripts (.t
files), it's meaningless to run the test suite in parallel by specifying -jN
when invoking the prove
utility.
Some parts of the test suite requires modules ngx_http_rewrite_module, echo-nginx-module, rds-json-nginx-module, and drizzle-nginx-module to be enabled as well when building Nginx.
TODO
- add gzip compression and decompression support.
- add new nginx variable
$srcache_key
and new directivessrcache_key_ignore_args
,srcache_key_filter_args
, andsrcache_key_sort_args
.
Getting involved
You'll be very welcomed to submit patches to the author or just ask for a commit bit to the source repository on GitHub.
Author
Yichun "agentzh" Zhang (章亦春) agentzh@gmail.com, CloudFlare Inc.
Copyright & License
Copyright (c) 2010-2016, Yichun "agentzh" Zhang (章亦春) agentzh@gmail.com, CloudFlare Inc.
This module is licensed under the terms of the BSD license.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.