Mailing List Archive

Varnish as cache for image servers
Dear List,

I only yesterday discovered Varnish. After spending most of today
reading and trawling the web on information concerning it, I am dying
to try it out on our web farm tomorrow.

My current problem is that I have 3 web servers, each with the same
32GB of static image files. I am currently using Lighttpd running on
Linux 2.6 to deliver this static content to our customers. The web
servers are 32bit machines with 4GB of RAM. (Yes 64bit would be
better) :-). We currently have have approx 1000req/s per server
(files about 30k each). An F5 Loadbalancer is splitting the load
between these machines.

# free
total used free shared buffers
cached
Mem: 3930100 1917892 2012208 0 517032
971216
-/+ buffers/cache: 429644 3500456
Swap: 1028152 0 1028152
#

The original idea was to let the linux kernel do all the caching with
its filesystem cache. Unfortunately, it does not seem to want to use
all the RAM available for this purpose. I was hoping that by making
more effective use of the available RAM, I would be able to reduce IO
Wait.

I am aware that I can help do this with faster disks, bigger RAID,
etc, but I was hoping to try and improve the situation by using the
onboard RAM.

Now for my questions:

1) Would you recommend using Varnish for this situation, or would you
suggest something like Apache with Mod_cache_memory or Zeus with
memory caching?

2) The ALPHA notes suggested that Varnish did not check for backend
errors - has this been fixed in the 1.0.2 version? IE: Can I use it
in a live situation and sleep at night?

3) Do you think running web server and Varnish on the same box would
cause a problem?

4) How do you limit the size of Varnish? Is this limited by the size
of the -s file? or size that you set with -s? I realise that this
will be a max of 3GB with a 32bit kernel....

5) Is there a suggested 'startup command line' that I should use in
such a situation - like the one used for for your test run?

and last but not least

6) As I am quite happy with the modified dates, etc that my web
server is delivering, do I need to use VCL scripts?


Thanks for getting through this mail!


Cheers


Andrew

---
Andrew Miehs
Varnish as cache for image servers [ In reply to ]
Dear List,

I only yesterday discovered Varnish. After spending most of today
reading and trawling the web on information concerning it, I am dying
to try it out on our web farm tomorrow.

My current problem is that I have 3 web servers, each with the same
32GB of static image files. I am currently using Lighttpd running on
Linux 2.6 to deliver this static content to our customers. The web
servers are 32bit machines with 4GB of RAM. (Yes 64bit would be
better) :-). We currently have have approx 1000req/s per server
(files about 30k each). An F5 Loadbalancer is splitting the load
between these machines.

# free
total used free shared buffers
cached
Mem: 3930100 1917892 2012208 0 517032
971216
-/+ buffers/cache: 429644 3500456
Swap: 1028152 0 1028152
#

The original idea was to let the linux kernel do all the caching with
its filesystem cache. Unfortunately, it does not seem to want to use
all the RAM available for this purpose. I was hoping that by making
more effective use of the available RAM, I would be able to reduce IO
Wait.

I am aware that I can help do this with faster disks, bigger RAID,
etc, but I was hoping to try and improve the situation by using the
onboard RAM.

Now for my questions:

1) Would you recommend using Varnish for this situation, or would you
suggest something like Apache with Mod_cache_memory or Zeus with
memory caching?

2) The ALPHA notes suggested that Varnish did not check for backend
errors - has this been fixed in the 1.0.2 version? IE: Can I use it
in a live situation and sleep at night?

3) Do you think running web server and Varnish on the same box would
cause a problem?

4) How do you limit the size of Varnish? Is this limited by the size
of the -s file? or size that you set with -s? I realise that this
will be a max of 3GB with a 32bit kernel....

5) Is there a suggested 'startup command line' that I should use in
such a situation - like the one used for for your test run?

and last but not least

6) As I am quite happy with the modified dates, etc that my web
server is delivering, do I need to use VCL scripts?


Thanks for getting through this mail!


Cheers


Andrew

---
Andrew Miehs
Varnish as cache for image servers [ In reply to ]
On Nov 19, 2006, at 18:23, Andrew Miehs wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> I only yesterday discovered Varnish. After spending most of today
> reading and trawling the web on information concerning it, I am
> dying to try it out on our web farm tomorrow.

Hi Andrew, and welcome to Varnish.

>
> My current problem is that I have 3 web servers, each with the same
> 32GB of static image files. I am currently using Lighttpd running
> on Linux 2.6 to deliver this static content to our customers. The
> web servers are 32bit machines with 4GB of RAM. (Yes 64bit would be
> better) :-). We currently have have approx 1000req/s per server
> (files about 30k each). An F5 Loadbalancer is splitting the load
> between these machines.
>
> # free
> total used free shared buffers
> cached
> Mem: 3930100 1917892 2012208 0 517032
> 971216
> -/+ buffers/cache: 429644 3500456
> Swap: 1028152 0 1028152
> #
>
> The original idea was to let the linux kernel do all the caching
> with its filesystem cache. Unfortunately, it does not seem to want
> to use all the RAM available for this purpose. I was hoping that by
> making more effective use of the available RAM, I would be able to
> reduce IO Wait.
>
> I am aware that I can help do this with faster disks, bigger RAID,
> etc, but I was hoping to try and improve the situation by using the
> onboard RAM.
>
> Now for my questions:
>

I'll have to answer these questions based on my experience and maybe
in a generic way.

> 1) Would you recommend using Varnish for this situation, or would
> you suggest something like Apache with Mod_cache_memory or Zeus
> with memory caching?

I would say that since your content is static I would in either go 2
ways based on the traffic pattern and what your data is "doing". For
example, where I work we have a rig that serv flash ads, and since
some tags for ads today make a uniqe URL for each serv (even if
content is satic). Since caching works bad in situations like this, I
have ended up using a FreeBSD with accel filtering and apache, and
that works fine. Mind that is with a small "often used" dataset.
But when it comes to "pure" static files I would say that Varnish in
theory should be a perfect match for what you are trying to do (I say
in theory since I have not used Varnish like that in a prod.
evironment). The reason I say so is because Varnish uses some "state
of the art" features in the OS (Even if they have been around a long
time :) Like you say, let the OS do the stuff it knows how to do
best.). Right now I use Varnish in a prod. environment with mixed
content static/dynamic, and it works amazing. Read the attached PDF
for a presentation and some stats.

I wanna add stuff here about 32 bit VS 64 bit, and talk some more
about you dataset instead of answering those questions later. Since
the 32 bit is slowly dying out we did not put much effort into it and
you will see "stupid" limits like max size on filesize (cache size).
We mmap the a file and let the OS do its work, and a 32 bit machine
would, as you say, have a 3 GB limit (I have not tried Varnish on a
32 bit machine, so I can't say where the limit is.). If that is
"enuff" to make Varnish work at it's best for you depends on your
dataset. Lets say you only "often" serv 3 GB of that static content,
well, then that is not a big setback, since Varnish will slowly
change data out with the default LRU algorithm (we have planned more
algorithms, and Varnish is made modular so it's easy to change to one
you'd like/make). If you can cache the static content for lets say a
week and new static content is added at a slow pace and not 30 GB a
day, not much disk IO will get done I guess. I know people wanna use
their hardware to the end, but Varnish running on 64 bit shines so
good, in many cases it's an immediate return of investment buying new
machines and running Varnish. I changed out 12 machines running Squid
with 2 64 bit machines with Varnish :)

As I mentioned we wanna add more algorithms in the future, if there
is need/requests for it, but right now we are gonna focues our work
on fixing bugs, getting things to run rock-hard stable, and adding
fetaures in VCL. We are also starting work with a spec for Varnish
2.0 (ESI/ESI'ish behaviour beeing the most popular request feature it
seems), and getting the governing board down. Our list of things we
wanna see in Varnish is long and uber-cool. Stay tuned.

> 2) The ALPHA notes suggested that Varnish did not check for backend
> errors - has this been fixed in the 1.0.2 version? IE: Can I use it
> in a live situation and sleep at night?

We cut some corners before launch, and VCL (thats where backend
loadbalancing and some other "save-backend" features are implemented)
did not get as feature-rich as we hoped. But I am happy to inform
that the break we took after the 1.0 launch, is now over and features
like backend-loadbalancing and checking are high on the list and
"quick" to implement I am told. So again, stay tuned. Also note that
I use Varnish in prod., but note that I am using FreeBSD STABLE and
Varnish works great with a sometimes overloaded backend.

>
> 3) Do you think running web server and Varnish on the same box
> would cause a problem?

Have not tried it. But should work fine depending on RAM and
loadtypes again. :)

> 4) How do you limit the size of Varnish? Is this limited by the
> size of the -s file? or size that you set with -s? I realise that
> this will be a max of 3GB with a 32bit kernel....

-s uses or makes a file depending on if there was a file there in the
first place.

> 5) Is there a suggested 'startup command line' that I should use in
> such a situation - like the one used for for your test run?
>
> and last but not least
>
> 6) As I am quite happy with the modified dates, etc that my web
> server is delivering, do I need to use VCL scripts?

No, the default VCL will honor your own settings in most cases.



Hope that helps some.

I guess I should add that Varnish was my initative and I provided the
funding for Varnish 1.0 and therefore I would have to be biased :)


YS
Anders Berg

>
>
> Thanks for getting through this mail!
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
> Andrew
Varnish as cache for image servers [ In reply to ]
On Nov 19, 2006, at 18:23, Andrew Miehs wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> I only yesterday discovered Varnish. After spending most of today
> reading and trawling the web on information concerning it, I am
> dying to try it out on our web farm tomorrow.

Hi Andrew, and welcome to Varnish.

>
> My current problem is that I have 3 web servers, each with the same
> 32GB of static image files. I am currently using Lighttpd running
> on Linux 2.6 to deliver this static content to our customers. The
> web servers are 32bit machines with 4GB of RAM. (Yes 64bit would be
> better) :-). We currently have have approx 1000req/s per server
> (files about 30k each). An F5 Loadbalancer is splitting the load
> between these machines.
>
> # free
> total used free shared buffers
> cached
> Mem: 3930100 1917892 2012208 0 517032
> 971216
> -/+ buffers/cache: 429644 3500456
> Swap: 1028152 0 1028152
> #
>
> The original idea was to let the linux kernel do all the caching
> with its filesystem cache. Unfortunately, it does not seem to want
> to use all the RAM available for this purpose. I was hoping that by
> making more effective use of the available RAM, I would be able to
> reduce IO Wait.
>
> I am aware that I can help do this with faster disks, bigger RAID,
> etc, but I was hoping to try and improve the situation by using the
> onboard RAM.
>
> Now for my questions:
>

I'll have to answer these questions based on my experience and maybe
in a generic way.

> 1) Would you recommend using Varnish for this situation, or would
> you suggest something like Apache with Mod_cache_memory or Zeus
> with memory caching?

I would say that since your content is static I would in either go 2
ways based on the traffic pattern and what your data is "doing". For
example, where I work we have a rig that serv flash ads, and since
some tags for ads today make a uniqe URL for each serv (even if
content is satic). Since caching works bad in situations like this, I
have ended up using a FreeBSD with accel filtering and apache, and
that works fine. Mind that is with a small "often used" dataset.
But when it comes to "pure" static files I would say that Varnish in
theory should be a perfect match for what you are trying to do (I say
in theory since I have not used Varnish like that in a prod.
evironment). The reason I say so is because Varnish uses some "state
of the art" features in the OS (Even if they have been around a long
time :) Like you say, let the OS do the stuff it knows how to do
best.). Right now I use Varnish in a prod. environment with mixed
content static/dynamic, and it works amazing. Read the attached PDF
for a presentation and some stats.

I wanna add stuff here about 32 bit VS 64 bit, and talk some more
about you dataset instead of answering those questions later. Since
the 32 bit is slowly dying out we did not put much effort into it and
you will see "stupid" limits like max size on filesize (cache size).
We mmap the a file and let the OS do its work, and a 32 bit machine
would, as you say, have a 3 GB limit (I have not tried Varnish on a
32 bit machine, so I can't say where the limit is.). If that is
"enuff" to make Varnish work at it's best for you depends on your
dataset. Lets say you only "often" serv 3 GB of that static content,
well, then that is not a big setback, since Varnish will slowly
change data out with the default LRU algorithm (we have planned more
algorithms, and Varnish is made modular so it's easy to change to one
you'd like/make). If you can cache the static content for lets say a
week and new static content is added at a slow pace and not 30 GB a
day, not much disk IO will get done I guess. I know people wanna use
their hardware to the end, but Varnish running on 64 bit shines so
good, in many cases it's an immediate return of investment buying new
machines and running Varnish. I changed out 12 machines running Squid
with 2 64 bit machines with Varnish :)

As I mentioned we wanna add more algorithms in the future, if there
is need/requests for it, but right now we are gonna focues our work
on fixing bugs, getting things to run rock-hard stable, and adding
fetaures in VCL. We are also starting work with a spec for Varnish
2.0 (ESI/ESI'ish behaviour beeing the most popular request feature it
seems), and getting the governing board down. Our list of things we
wanna see in Varnish is long and uber-cool. Stay tuned.

> 2) The ALPHA notes suggested that Varnish did not check for backend
> errors - has this been fixed in the 1.0.2 version? IE: Can I use it
> in a live situation and sleep at night?

We cut some corners before launch, and VCL (thats where backend
loadbalancing and some other "save-backend" features are implemented)
did not get as feature-rich as we hoped. But I am happy to inform
that the break we took after the 1.0 launch, is now over and features
like backend-loadbalancing and checking are high on the list and
"quick" to implement I am told. So again, stay tuned. Also note that
I use Varnish in prod., but note that I am using FreeBSD STABLE and
Varnish works great with a sometimes overloaded backend.

>
> 3) Do you think running web server and Varnish on the same box
> would cause a problem?

Have not tried it. But should work fine depending on RAM and
loadtypes again. :)

> 4) How do you limit the size of Varnish? Is this limited by the
> size of the -s file? or size that you set with -s? I realise that
> this will be a max of 3GB with a 32bit kernel....

-s uses or makes a file depending on if there was a file there in the
first place.

> 5) Is there a suggested 'startup command line' that I should use in
> such a situation - like the one used for for your test run?
>
> and last but not least
>
> 6) As I am quite happy with the modified dates, etc that my web
> server is delivering, do I need to use VCL scripts?

No, the default VCL will honor your own settings in most cases.



Hope that helps some.

I guess I should add that Varnish was my initative and I provided the
funding for Varnish 1.0 and therefore I would have to be biased :)


YS
Anders Berg

>
>
> Thanks for getting through this mail!
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
> Andrew
Varnish as cache for image servers [ In reply to ]
And the slides :)

Doh.

Anders Berg
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On Nov 20, 2006, at 0:45, Anders Berg wrote:

>
> On Nov 19, 2006, at 18:23, Andrew Miehs wrote:
>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> I only yesterday discovered Varnish. After spending most of today
>> reading and trawling the web on information concerning it, I am
>> dying to try it out on our web farm tomorrow.
>
> Hi Andrew, and welcome to Varnish.
>
>>
>> My current problem is that I have 3 web servers, each with the
>> same 32GB of static image files. I am currently using Lighttpd
>> running on Linux 2.6 to deliver this static content to our
>> customers. The web servers are 32bit machines with 4GB of RAM.
>> (Yes 64bit would be better) :-). We currently have have approx
>> 1000req/s per server (files about 30k each). An F5 Loadbalancer is
>> splitting the load between these machines.
>>
>> # free
>> total used free shared buffers
>> cached
>> Mem: 3930100 1917892 2012208 0 517032
>> 971216
>> -/+ buffers/cache: 429644 3500456
>> Swap: 1028152 0 1028152
>> #
>>
>> The original idea was to let the linux kernel do all the caching
>> with its filesystem cache. Unfortunately, it does not seem to want
>> to use all the RAM available for this purpose. I was hoping that
>> by making more effective use of the available RAM, I would be able
>> to reduce IO Wait.
>>
>> I am aware that I can help do this with faster disks, bigger RAID,
>> etc, but I was hoping to try and improve the situation by using
>> the onboard RAM.
>>
>> Now for my questions:
>>
>
> I'll have to answer these questions based on my experience and
> maybe in a generic way.
>
>> 1) Would you recommend using Varnish for this situation, or would
>> you suggest something like Apache with Mod_cache_memory or Zeus
>> with memory caching?
>
> I would say that since your content is static I would in either go
> 2 ways based on the traffic pattern and what your data is "doing".
> For example, where I work we have a rig that serv flash ads, and
> since some tags for ads today make a uniqe URL for each serv (even
> if content is satic). Since caching works bad in situations like
> this, I have ended up using a FreeBSD with accel filtering and
> apache, and that works fine. Mind that is with a small "often used"
> dataset.
> But when it comes to "pure" static files I would say that Varnish
> in theory should be a perfect match for what you are trying to do
> (I say in theory since I have not used Varnish like that in a prod.
> evironment). The reason I say so is because Varnish uses some
> "state of the art" features in the OS (Even if they have been
> around a long time :) Like you say, let the OS do the stuff it
> knows how to do best.). Right now I use Varnish in a prod.
> environment with mixed content static/dynamic, and it works
> amazing. Read the attached PDF for a presentation and some stats.
>
> I wanna add stuff here about 32 bit VS 64 bit, and talk some more
> about you dataset instead of answering those questions later. Since
> the 32 bit is slowly dying out we did not put much effort into it
> and you will see "stupid" limits like max size on filesize (cache
> size). We mmap the a file and let the OS do its work, and a 32 bit
> machine would, as you say, have a 3 GB limit (I have not tried
> Varnish on a 32 bit machine, so I can't say where the limit is.).
> If that is "enuff" to make Varnish work at it's best for you
> depends on your dataset. Lets say you only "often" serv 3 GB of
> that static content, well, then that is not a big setback, since
> Varnish will slowly change data out with the default LRU algorithm
> (we have planned more algorithms, and Varnish is made modular so
> it's easy to change to one you'd like/make). If you can cache the
> static content for lets say a week and new static content is added
> at a slow pace and not 30 GB a day, not much disk IO will get done
> I guess. I know people wanna use their hardware to the end, but
> Varnish running on 64 bit shines so good, in many cases it's an
> immediate return of investment buying new machines and running
> Varnish. I changed out 12 machines running Squid with 2 64 bit
> machines with Varnish :)
>
> As I mentioned we wanna add more algorithms in the future, if there
> is need/requests for it, but right now we are gonna focues our work
> on fixing bugs, getting things to run rock-hard stable, and adding
> fetaures in VCL. We are also starting work with a spec for Varnish
> 2.0 (ESI/ESI'ish behaviour beeing the most popular request feature
> it seems), and getting the governing board down. Our list of things
> we wanna see in Varnish is long and uber-cool. Stay tuned.
>
>> 2) The ALPHA notes suggested that Varnish did not check for
>> backend errors - has this been fixed in the 1.0.2 version? IE: Can
>> I use it in a live situation and sleep at night?
>
> We cut some corners before launch, and VCL (thats where backend
> loadbalancing and some other "save-backend" features are
> implemented) did not get as feature-rich as we hoped. But I am
> happy to inform that the break we took after the 1.0 launch, is now
> over and features like backend-loadbalancing and checking are high
> on the list and "quick" to implement I am told. So again, stay
> tuned. Also note that I use Varnish in prod., but note that I am
> using FreeBSD STABLE and Varnish works great with a sometimes
> overloaded backend.
>
>>
>> 3) Do you think running web server and Varnish on the same box
>> would cause a problem?
>
> Have not tried it. But should work fine depending on RAM and
> loadtypes again. :)
>
>> 4) How do you limit the size of Varnish? Is this limited by the
>> size of the -s file? or size that you set with -s? I realise that
>> this will be a max of 3GB with a 32bit kernel....
>
> -s uses or makes a file depending on if there was a file there in
> the first place.
>
>> 5) Is there a suggested 'startup command line' that I should use
>> in such a situation - like the one used for for your test run?
>>
>> and last but not least
>>
>> 6) As I am quite happy with the modified dates, etc that my web
>> server is delivering, do I need to use VCL scripts?
>
> No, the default VCL will honor your own settings in most cases.
>
>
>
> Hope that helps some.
>
> I guess I should add that Varnish was my initative and I provided
> the funding for Varnish 1.0 and therefore I would have to be biased :)
>
>
> YS
> Anders Berg
>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for getting through this mail!
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>>
>> Andrew
>
> _______________________________________________
> varnish-dev mailing list
> varnish-dev at projects.linpro.no
> http://projects.linpro.no/mailman/listinfo/varnish-dev
>
Varnish as cache for image servers [ In reply to ]
And the slides :)

Doh.

Anders Berg
-------------- next part --------------
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-------------- next part --------------


On Nov 20, 2006, at 0:45, Anders Berg wrote:

>
> On Nov 19, 2006, at 18:23, Andrew Miehs wrote:
>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> I only yesterday discovered Varnish. After spending most of today
>> reading and trawling the web on information concerning it, I am
>> dying to try it out on our web farm tomorrow.
>
> Hi Andrew, and welcome to Varnish.
>
>>
>> My current problem is that I have 3 web servers, each with the
>> same 32GB of static image files. I am currently using Lighttpd
>> running on Linux 2.6 to deliver this static content to our
>> customers. The web servers are 32bit machines with 4GB of RAM.
>> (Yes 64bit would be better) :-). We currently have have approx
>> 1000req/s per server (files about 30k each). An F5 Loadbalancer is
>> splitting the load between these machines.
>>
>> # free
>> total used free shared buffers
>> cached
>> Mem: 3930100 1917892 2012208 0 517032
>> 971216
>> -/+ buffers/cache: 429644 3500456
>> Swap: 1028152 0 1028152
>> #
>>
>> The original idea was to let the linux kernel do all the caching
>> with its filesystem cache. Unfortunately, it does not seem to want
>> to use all the RAM available for this purpose. I was hoping that
>> by making more effective use of the available RAM, I would be able
>> to reduce IO Wait.
>>
>> I am aware that I can help do this with faster disks, bigger RAID,
>> etc, but I was hoping to try and improve the situation by using
>> the onboard RAM.
>>
>> Now for my questions:
>>
>
> I'll have to answer these questions based on my experience and
> maybe in a generic way.
>
>> 1) Would you recommend using Varnish for this situation, or would
>> you suggest something like Apache with Mod_cache_memory or Zeus
>> with memory caching?
>
> I would say that since your content is static I would in either go
> 2 ways based on the traffic pattern and what your data is "doing".
> For example, where I work we have a rig that serv flash ads, and
> since some tags for ads today make a uniqe URL for each serv (even
> if content is satic). Since caching works bad in situations like
> this, I have ended up using a FreeBSD with accel filtering and
> apache, and that works fine. Mind that is with a small "often used"
> dataset.
> But when it comes to "pure" static files I would say that Varnish
> in theory should be a perfect match for what you are trying to do
> (I say in theory since I have not used Varnish like that in a prod.
> evironment). The reason I say so is because Varnish uses some
> "state of the art" features in the OS (Even if they have been
> around a long time :) Like you say, let the OS do the stuff it
> knows how to do best.). Right now I use Varnish in a prod.
> environment with mixed content static/dynamic, and it works
> amazing. Read the attached PDF for a presentation and some stats.
>
> I wanna add stuff here about 32 bit VS 64 bit, and talk some more
> about you dataset instead of answering those questions later. Since
> the 32 bit is slowly dying out we did not put much effort into it
> and you will see "stupid" limits like max size on filesize (cache
> size). We mmap the a file and let the OS do its work, and a 32 bit
> machine would, as you say, have a 3 GB limit (I have not tried
> Varnish on a 32 bit machine, so I can't say where the limit is.).
> If that is "enuff" to make Varnish work at it's best for you
> depends on your dataset. Lets say you only "often" serv 3 GB of
> that static content, well, then that is not a big setback, since
> Varnish will slowly change data out with the default LRU algorithm
> (we have planned more algorithms, and Varnish is made modular so
> it's easy to change to one you'd like/make). If you can cache the
> static content for lets say a week and new static content is added
> at a slow pace and not 30 GB a day, not much disk IO will get done
> I guess. I know people wanna use their hardware to the end, but
> Varnish running on 64 bit shines so good, in many cases it's an
> immediate return of investment buying new machines and running
> Varnish. I changed out 12 machines running Squid with 2 64 bit
> machines with Varnish :)
>
> As I mentioned we wanna add more algorithms in the future, if there
> is need/requests for it, but right now we are gonna focues our work
> on fixing bugs, getting things to run rock-hard stable, and adding
> fetaures in VCL. We are also starting work with a spec for Varnish
> 2.0 (ESI/ESI'ish behaviour beeing the most popular request feature
> it seems), and getting the governing board down. Our list of things
> we wanna see in Varnish is long and uber-cool. Stay tuned.
>
>> 2) The ALPHA notes suggested that Varnish did not check for
>> backend errors - has this been fixed in the 1.0.2 version? IE: Can
>> I use it in a live situation and sleep at night?
>
> We cut some corners before launch, and VCL (thats where backend
> loadbalancing and some other "save-backend" features are
> implemented) did not get as feature-rich as we hoped. But I am
> happy to inform that the break we took after the 1.0 launch, is now
> over and features like backend-loadbalancing and checking are high
> on the list and "quick" to implement I am told. So again, stay
> tuned. Also note that I use Varnish in prod., but note that I am
> using FreeBSD STABLE and Varnish works great with a sometimes
> overloaded backend.
>
>>
>> 3) Do you think running web server and Varnish on the same box
>> would cause a problem?
>
> Have not tried it. But should work fine depending on RAM and
> loadtypes again. :)
>
>> 4) How do you limit the size of Varnish? Is this limited by the
>> size of the -s file? or size that you set with -s? I realise that
>> this will be a max of 3GB with a 32bit kernel....
>
> -s uses or makes a file depending on if there was a file there in
> the first place.
>
>> 5) Is there a suggested 'startup command line' that I should use
>> in such a situation - like the one used for for your test run?
>>
>> and last but not least
>>
>> 6) As I am quite happy with the modified dates, etc that my web
>> server is delivering, do I need to use VCL scripts?
>
> No, the default VCL will honor your own settings in most cases.
>
>
>
> Hope that helps some.
>
> I guess I should add that Varnish was my initative and I provided
> the funding for Varnish 1.0 and therefore I would have to be biased :)
>
>
> YS
> Anders Berg
>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for getting through this mail!
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>>
>> Andrew
>
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