Varnish is configured to improve site response time. The document provides instructions on setting up Varnish cache in front of a web server. It discusses requirements like routing all traffic through a firewall and caching content for 6 hours if the origin server is down. It also covers estimating cache size, installing Varnish and plugins to monitor performance, and ensuring Varnish automatically restarts.

1. Improving Site Response Time
Part 3: Varnish Configuration Step by Step
Kim Stefan Lindholm 1 19.2.2012

2. Instructions are for Amazon Linux AMI
(64-bit) and compatible systems.
2

3. Varnish Configuration - Requirements
1 All traffic to origin server is routed through Incapsula firewall
If origin server or Incapsula proxy is down, Varnish serves a
2
cached copy for 6 hours
Varnish restarts automatically upon critical failure or server
3
reboot and notifies the administrator by e-mail
Varnish hit rate, CPU load and memory usage can be
4
monitored at specific URL
3

4. CACHE SIZE
Most files are served from CDN, so dataset should be small
VCL file: Normalization of hostname, gzip/deflate, etc.
VCL file: No caching for logged in users / administrator back-end
VCL file: Only one version of page is cached regardless of cookies
3 variants of style sheets: standard, IE8 or later, ≤IE7
4

5. ESTIMATING SIZE
• Test site has 27 pages, sized 2.5 - 5.3 kB according to Firefox
• We didn’t optimize for IE7, thus page sizes are 88 - 129 kB
• For a very static site, let’s say we’ll reach a maximum of 100 pages
• Firefox, Chrome, Opera & Safari: 100 x 5.5 kB = 0.6 MB
• IE 8 or later: 100 x 120 kB = 12 MB
• IE7 & IE6: 100 x 130 kB = 13 MB
5

6. ESTIMATING SIZE
• Depending on the amount of unique (= browser x encoding etc.) cached pages
needed, entire real dataset will probably be 10-50 MB in size
• Amazon EC2 micro instance has 613 MB of RAM and running “vmstat” or “free -
m” shows that ~170 MB of that is available
• As a rule of thumb (which doesn’t always work) you can allocate 80 % of free
memory to Varnish cache
• We’ll allocate 130 MB and hot dataset should still be a fraction of that
• Had we not pushed 250 MB of files to CDN, we’d need at least 1 GB of RAM
6

7. Installing Varnish
7

8. • Our VCL files and tools use syntax of Varnish 3.0 and don’t
work with older versions
• Building Varnish from source:
sudo su -
yum install -y gcc make pkgconfig pcre-devel ncurses-devel
cd /usr/src
wget http://repo.varnish-cache.org/source/varnish-3.0.2.tar.gz -O - | tar xz
cd varnish-3.0.2
./configure
make && make install
exit
• Copy VCL configuration file to /etc/varnish and try
invoking Varnish: “sudo /usr/local/sbin/varnishd -V”
8

9. • Running with 130 MB of memory (remove line breaks):
sudo /usr/local/sbin/varnishd -s malloc,130M -f /etc/varnish/<your_config>.vcl
-T 127.0.0.1:2000 -a 0.0.0.0:80
• Only if out of memory, try with disk:
sudo /usr/local/sbin/varnishd -s file,/<path>/<file>,3G
-f /etc/varnish/<your_config>.vcl -T 127.0.0.1:2000 -a 0.0.0.0:80
• Stopping Varnish:
sudo pkill varnishd
9

10. • Useful commands for monitoring Varnish:
varnishstat varnishtop
varnishhist varnishsizes
varnishlog
• Purging main page / all pages from cache:
varnishadm -T localhost:2000 ban.url "^/$"
varnishadm -T localhost:2000 ban.url "^/.*"
• Further performance tuning:
sudo /usr/local/sbin/varnishd -s malloc,130M -u nobody -g nobody
-p cli_timeout=30 -p thread_pool_add_delay=2 -p thread_pool_min=400
-p thread_pool_max=4000 -p session_linger=100
-f /etc/varnish/<your_config>.vcl -T 127.0.0.1:2000 -a 0.0.0.0:80
10

11. Installing Security.VCL
11

12. • Varnish makes a nice first line of defense against web attacks
• Security.VCL
is a web application firewall similar to Apache
mod_security but faster
# If not yet installed: sudo yum install -y make
wget https://github.com/comotion/security.vcl/tarball/master -O - | tar xz
cd <comotion-security-dir>/vcl/
sudo make
cd ..
sudo ln -s $PWD/vcl/ /etc/varnish/security
• Edit your VCL file and add this line near the top:
include "/etc/varnish/security/main.vcl";
12

13. • Edit file vcl/config.vcl and comment out some rules:
#include "/etc/varnish/security/modules/robots.vcl";
#include "/etc/varnish/security/modules/cloak.vcl";
• Finally, reload
your Varnish configuration and test the firewall.
Visiting these URLs must return “Error 403 Naughty, not
nice!”
• example.com/exploit/foo/bar:bla
• example.com/index.old
• example.com/SELECT FROM
• example.com/javascript:
13

14. Installing New Relic
14

15. • New Relic allows tracking request queue times which is a
relevant metric when load testing Varnish
• Signup for a free account at http://newrelic.com/, subscribe
to a weekly performance summary and write down your
license key
sudo rpm -Uvh
http://yum.newrelic.com/pub/newrelic/el5/x86_64/newrelic-repo-5-3.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install -y newrelic-sysmond
sudo nrsysmond-config --set license_key=<your_license_key>
sudo /etc/init.d/newrelic-sysmond start
15

16. • Create file /etc/varnish/newrelic.h
/*
* Add X-Request-Start header so we can track queue times in New Relic RPM
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
struct timeval detail_time;
gettimeofday(&detail_time, NULL);
char start[20];
sprintf(start, "t=%lu%06lu", detail_time.tv_sec, detail_time.tv_usec);
VRT_SetHdr(sp, HDR_REQ, "020X-Request-Start:", start, vrt_magic_string_end);
• Add the following to your VCL file, inside vcl_recv:
C{
#include </etc/varnish/newrelic.h>
}C
16

17. After a while, request queuing parameter should
appear in New Relic RPM:
17

18. Installing Munin
18

19. • Install Munin and Varnish plugins:
sudo su -
yum install -y munin-node munin
cd /usr/share/munin/plugins/
wget https://raw.github.com/munin-monitoring/contrib/master/plugins/
varnish/varnish_allocated
wget https://raw.github.com/munin-monitoring/contrib/master/plugins/
varnish/varnish_cachehitratio
wget https://raw.github.com/munin-monitoring/contrib/master/plugins/
varnish/varnish_healthy_backends
wget https://raw.github.com/munin-monitoring/contrib/master/plugins/
varnish/varnish_hitrate
wget https://raw.github.com/munin-monitoring/contrib/master/plugins/
varnish/varnish_total_objects
chmod a+x /usr/share/munin/plugins/varnish_*
ln -s /usr/share/munin/plugins/varnish_* /etc/munin/plugins/
exit
• Command “munin-node-configure” lists installed plugins
19

20. • Add to /etc/munin/plugin-conf.d/munin-node
[varnish*]
user root
# Uncomment to set network traffic warning at 400K
# [if_*]
# env.warning 400000
• Edit e-mail settings in /etc/munin/munin.conf
contact.me.command mail -s "Munin notification" admin@example.com
contact.me.always_send warning critical
• Start Munin: “sudo service munin-node start”
20

21. Munin notifications can be tested by
setting a low threshold for traffic:
21

22. Cloud platforms allow setting useful alerts as well,
here’s Amazon CloudWatch:
22

23. ...or sign up for a free RevealCloud account at
https://app.copperegg.com/signup/free
23

24. Weekly E-mail from Munin
24

25. • Create file /etc/varnish/email_varnish_reports.sh
#!/bin/bash
# Send Munin generated Varnish statistics by e-mail
VARNISH_LOCATION="Tokyo"
REPORT_PATH=/var/www/html/munin/localhost/localhost
EMAIL_RECIPIENT="admin@example.com"
EMAIL_SUBJECT="Varnish Weekly Statistics"
EMAIL_BODY="Weekly statistics attached."
hash mutt 2>&- || { echo -e >&2 "nMutt not installed, aborting.n"; exit 1; }
echo $EMAIL_BODY | mutt -s "$EMAIL_SUBJECT ($VARNISH_LOCATION)"
-a $REPORT_PATH/varnish_cachehitratio-week.png
-a $REPORT_PATH/varnish_hitrate-week.png
-a $REPORT_PATH/varnish_total_objects-week.png
-a $REPORT_PATH/varnish_allocated-week.png
-a $REPORT_PATH/df-week.png
-a $REPORT_PATH/threads-week.png
-a $REPORT_PATH/cpu-week.png
-a $REPORT_PATH/memory-week.png
-- $EMAIL_RECIPIENT
25

26. • Edit file /etc/crontab to send a report every Monday
MAILTO=admin@example.com
00 08 * * Mon root /etc/varnish/email_varnish_reports.sh
• Make sure Mutt is installed and restart cron daemon
sudo yum install -y mutt
sudo service crond restart
26

27. Limited Browser Access to Munin
Graphs
27

28. • Install lighttpd
sudo yum install -y lighttpd
• Edit file /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
server.port = 8081
server.document-root = server_root + "/html"
$HTTP["remoteip"] !~ "127.0.0.1" {
url.access-deny = ( "" )
}
• Start lighttpd
sudo service lighttpd start
28

29. • Now you can let Varnish control access to Munin graphs.
Benefit: maintain ACLs in one configuration file only.
• Edit your VCL file and add this line near the top:
backend monitoring { .host = "127.0.0.1"; .port = "8081"; }
• Add the following in the beginning of vcl_recv:
if (req.url ~ "^/munin" && client.ip ~ internal
&& (req.url ~ "?your-secret-token"
|| req.http.referer ~ "(www.)?example.com")) {
set req.backend = monitoring;
return (pipe);
}
29

30. Automatic Restarting
30

31. • Install daemontools and create Varnish service directory
sudo su -
mkdir -p /package
cd /package
wget http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/daemontools-0.76.tar.gz
tar zxpf daemontools-0.76.tar.gz
rm -f daemontools-0.76.tar.gz
cd admin/daemontools-0.76
sed -i '/extern int errno/{s/^//* /;s/$/ *//;G;s/$/#include <errno.h>/;}'
src/error.h
package/install
mkdir /var/service
mkdir -m 1755 /var/service/varnish
31

32. • Stop Varnish
in case it’s running and create an executable
script /var/service/varnish/run:
#!/bin/sh
# Daemontools run script for starting Varnish
exec 2>&1
exec echo | mail -s "Varnish in Tokyo restarting" admin@example.com
exec varnishd -F -s malloc,130M -u nobody -g nobody -p cli_timeout=30
-p thread_pool_add_delay=2 -p thread_pool_min=400 -p thread_pool_max=4000
-p session_linger=100 -f /etc/varnish/varnish.tokyo.vcl -T 127.0.0.1:2000
-a 0.0.0.0:80
• Notethat the script may get called multiple times during
reboot, thus sending several e-mails
32

33. • Create a log script and add symbolic link:
mkdir -m 755 /var/service/varnish/log
cd /var/service/varnish/log
wget http://qmail.jms1.net/scripts/service-any-log-run
mv service-any-log-run run
chmod 755 run
ln -s /var/service/varnish /service/varnish
• Confirm that the services are running:
svstat /service/varnish /service/varnish/log
• Ifdaemontools is not running, type "sudo /command/
svscanboot &". Varnish is stopped by typing "svc -d /service/
varnish" and started with "svc -u /service/varnish".
33

34. • Reboot the system to check that everything works fine. You
might have to take two more steps. Comment out this line
from file /etc/inittab:
#SV:12345:respawn:/command/svscanboot
• Create file /etc/init/svscan.conf:
start on runlevel [12345]
stop on runlevel [^12345]
respawn
exec /command/svscanboot
• Add similar scripts /service/<your-service>/run for
all services you need to manage, e.g. Munin and lighttpd.
34

35. • Finally, you can create a swap file in case Varnish needs it:
#!/bin/bash
# Create swapfile if not already present. Default size is 2 GB.
if [ ${SWAP_SIZE_MEGABYTES:=2048} -eq 0 ];then
echo No swap size given, skipping.
else
if [ -e /swapfile ];then
echo /swapfile already exists, skipping.
else
echo Creating /swapfile of $SWAP_SIZE_MEGABYTES MB
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=$(($SWAP_SIZE_MEGABYTES*1024))
mkswap /swapfile
fi
swapon /swapfile
echo Swap Status:
swapon -s
fi
35

36. DOWNLOADS
• varnish.tokyo.vcl (VCL example) - https://gist.github.com/1754248
• newrelic.h - https://gist.github.com/1817420
• email_varnish_reports.sh - https://gist.github.com/1817400
• run (daemontools) - https://gist.github.com/1818886
• create_swapfile.sh - https://gist.github.com/1817411
• daemontools log script - http://qmail.jms1.net/scripts/service-any-log-run
• Other code snippets of this presentation - https://gist.github.com/1819143
36

37. VCL Configuration File
37

38. # VCL configuration file for Varnish # Handle HTTPS connection
Pa
Pa
if (server.port == 443) {
ge
ge
# Define which IP addresses or hosts have access to files that are set req.backend = web_ssl;
1
2
# blocked from the public internet } else {
acl internal { set req.backend = web;
}
"localhost"; your origin }
server here if (req.restarts == 0) {
# Define origin servers if (req.http.x-forwarded-for) {
backend web { .host = "1.2.3.4"; .port = "80"; } set req.http.X-Forwarded-For =
backend web_ssl { .host = "1.2.3.4"; .port = "443"; } req.http.X-Forwarded-For + ", " + client.ip;
} else {
# Uncomment to support Munin graphs set req.http.X-Forwarded-For = client.ip;
# backend monitoring { .host = "127.0.0.1"; .port = "8081"; } }
}
# Uncomment to include Security.VCL module
# @see: https://github.com/comotion/security.vcl # Normalize requests sent via curls -X mode and LWP
# include "/etc/varnish/security/main.vcl"; if (req.url ~ "^http://") {
set req.url = regsub(req.url, "http://[^/]*", "");
# Respond to incoming requests }
sub vcl_recv {
# Normalize hostname to avoid double caching
# Uncomment to support Munin graphs. Access is granted if visitor set req.http.host = regsub(req.http.host,
# is coming from a whitelisted IP address and secret token is "^example.com$", "www.example.com");
# provided.
# e.g. http://www.example.com/munin?your-secret-token # Uncomment to support shared hosting when testing through staging
# if (req.url ~ "^/munin" && client.ip ~ internal # server
# && (req.url ~ "?your-secret-token" # set req.http.host = regsub(req.http.host, "^cache.example.com$",
# || req.http.referer ~ "(www.)?example.com")) { # "www.example.com");
# set req.backend = monitoring;
# return (pipe) ;
# } # Use anonymous, cached pages if all backends are down
if (!req.backend.healthy) {
# Uncomment to have New Relic track queue times unset req.http.Cookie;
# C{ }
# #include </etc/varnish/newrelic.h>
# }C
38

39. # Allow the backend to serve up stale content if it is # Handle compression correctly. Different browsers send
Pa
Pa
# responding slowly # different "Accept-Encoding" headers, even though they
ge
ge
set req.grace = 6h; # mostly all support the same compression mechanisms. By
3
4
# consolidating these compression headers into a consistent
# Do not cache these paths # format, we can reduce the size of the cache and get more hits.
if (req.url ~ "^/status.php$" || # @see: http:// varnish.projects.linpro.no/wiki/FAQ/Compression
req.url ~ "^/administrator") { if (req.http.Accept-Encoding) {
return (pass); if (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "gzip") {
} # If the browser supports it, we'll use gzip.
set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "gzip";
# Do not cache authenticated sessions } else if (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "deflate") {
if (req.http.Cookie && req.http.Cookie ~ "authtoken=") { # Next, try deflate if it is supported.
return (pipe); set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "deflate";
} } else {
# Unknown algorithm. Remove it and send unencoded.
# Do not allow outside access to configuration.php unset req.http.Accept-Encoding;
if (req.url ~ "^/configuration.php$" && !client.ip ~ internal) { }
# Have Varnish throw the error directly }
# error 404 "Page not found.";
# Always cache the following file types for all users
# Use a custom error page if (req.url ~
set req.url = "/"; "(?i).(png|gif|jpeg|jpg|ico|swf|pdf|txt|css|js|html|htm|gz|xml)
} (?[a-z0-9]+)?$") {
unset req.http.Cookie;
# Allow purge only from internal users }
if (req.request == "PURGE") {
if (!client.ip ~ internal) { if (req.request != "GET" &&
error 405 "Not allowed."; req.request != "HEAD" &&
} req.request != "PUT" &&
return (lookup); req.request != "POST" &&
} req.request != "TRACE" &&
req.request != "OPTIONS" &&
req.request != "DELETE") {
/* Non-RFC2616 or CONNECT which is weird. */
return (pipe);
}
39

40. if (req.request != "GET" && req.request != "HEAD") { # Don't include cookie in hash
Pa
Pa
return (pass); # if (req.http.Cookie) {
ge
ge
} # hash_data(req.http.Cookie);
5
6
# }
# We cache requests with cookies too (e.g. Google Analytics)
# Original: if (req.http.Authenticate || req.http.Authorization return (hash);
# || req.http.Cookie) { }
if (req.http.Authenticate || req.http.Authorization) {
return (pass); sub vcl_hit {
} if (req.request == "PURGE") {
purge;
return (lookup); error 200 "Purged.";
} }
if (obj.ttl <= 0s) {
# sub vcl_pipe { return (pass);
# # Note that only the first request to the backend will have }
# # X-Forwarded-For set. If you use X-Forwarded-For and want to
# # have it set for all requests, make sure to have: return (deliver);
# # set bereq.http.connection = "close"; }
# # here. It is not set by default as it might break some
# # broken web applications, like IIS with NTLM authentication. sub vcl_miss {
# return (pipe); if (req.request == "PURGE") {
# } error 404 "Not in cache.";
}
# sub vcl_pass {
# return (pass); return (fetch);
# } }
# Determine the cache key when storing/retrieving a cached page # Called when the requested object has been retrieved from the backend,
sub vcl_hash { # or the request to the backend has failed; "beresp" stands for
hash_data(req.url); # back-end response
if (req.http.host) { sub vcl_fetch {
hash_data(req.http.host);
} else {
hash_data(server.ip);
}
40

41. # Don't allow static files to set cookies # unset beresp.http.expires;
Pa
Pa
if (req.url ~ # set beresp.ttl = 1w;
ge
ge
"(?i).(png|gif|jpeg|jpg|ico|swf|pdf|txt|css|js|html|htm|gz|xml) # set beresp.http.magicmarker = "1";
7
8
(?[a-z0-9]+)?$") { }
unset beresp.http.Set-cookie;
} return (deliver);
}
# Allow items to be stale if needed
set beresp.grace = 6h; sub vcl_deliver {
if (beresp.ttl <= 0s) { # Uncomment to add hostname to headers
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = "NO:Not Cacheable"; # set resp.http.X-Served-By = server.hostname;
return (hit_for_pass);
} else if (req.http.Cookie ~"(UserID|_session)") { # Identify which Varnish handled the request
# Don't cache content for logged in users if (obj.hits > 0) {
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = "NO:Got Session"; set resp.http.X-Cache = "HIT from Tokyo";
return (hit_for_pass); set resp.http.X-Cache-Hits = obj.hits;
} else if (beresp.http.Cache-Control ~ "private") { } else {
# Respect the Cache-Control=private header from the backend set resp.http.X-Cache = "MISS from Tokyo";
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = "NO:Cache-Control=private";
return (hit_for_pass);
}
your location
} else if (beresp.ttl < 1s) { # Remove version number sometimes set by CMS here
# Extend the lifetime of the object artificially if (resp.http.X-Content-Encoded-By) {
set beresp.ttl = 300s; unset resp.http.X-Content-Encoded-By;
set beresp.grace = 300s; }
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = "YES:Forced";
} else { if (resp.http.magicmarker) {
# Varnish determined the object was cacheable # Remove the magic marker, see vcl_fetch
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = "YES"; unset resp.http.magicmarker;
# Uncomment to have Varnish cache objects longer than the clients # By definition we have a fresh object
# do. Cache must be purged manually when the site changes, so don't set resp.http.Age = "0";
# use with frequently changing content - comments, visitor counters }
# etc.
# @see: https://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/wiki/ return (deliver);
VCLExampleLongerCaching }
41

42. sub vcl_error { "};
Pa
Pa
ge
return (deliver);
ge
10
# Redirect to some other URL in case of root page failure }
9
# if (req.url ~ "^/?$") {
# set obj.status = 302;
# set obj.http.Location = "http://backup.example.com/";
# }
# Otherwise redirect to root, which will likely be in the cache
set obj.http.Content-Type = "text/html; charset=utf-8";
synthetic {"
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Unavailable</title>
<style>
body { background: #efefef; text-align: center; color: white;
font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; }
#page { width: 500px; margin: 100px auto 0; padding: 30px;
background: #888888;
border-radius: 14px; -moz-border-radius: 14px; -webkit-border-
radius: 14px; border: 0 }
a, a:link, a:visited { color: #cccccc; }
.error { color: #222222; }
</style>
</head>
<body onload="setTimeout(function() { window.location = '/' }, 3000)">
<div id="page">
<h1 class="title">Page Unavailable</h1>
<p>The page you requested is temporarily unavailable.</p>
<p>We're redirecting you to the <a href="/">homepage</a> in 3
seconds.</p>
<div class="error">(Error "} + obj.status + " " + obj.response +
{")</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
42

43. ONE MORE THING...
Incapsula need your A record and CNAME record (www) to point to their
servers. This is obviously not the case when you send visitors to Varnish
instead.
If your DNS settings don’t match Incapsula’s instructions, you’ll see an error
message in control panel and the service might be disabled - not sure about
the latter.
Quick fix is to always send visitors from Ireland and Israel to the default
address as these are the locations of Incapsula Site Helper bot. If this seems too
hackish, more elegant solutions probably exist.
43

44. GEODNS SETTINGS
Record Area Data
example.com Europe, Africa, Global <Varnish Ireland IP>
example.com Americas, Global <Varnish California IP>
example.com Asia, Australia, Global <Varnish Tokyo IP>
example.com Ireland, Israel, Global <Incapsula IP>
www.example.com Global example.com
www.example.com Ireland, Israel <Incapsula CNAME>
Matches are made from smallest to largest qualifying records, so Ireland takes precedence over
Europe which in turn precedes global record. Geo-targeting is never 100% accurate.
44

45. DNS FAILOVER
• Wondered why area Global was set for so many records?
• This means that when one edge server is down, requests will be balanced
to all remaining servers marked as global
• As a result, potential DDoS attack will have to take down 4 destinations
instead of one. An alternative would be having only Incapsula as backup and
keeping other Varnish boxes (and visitors) oblivious to regional attacks.
• When a failed edge server is back up again, it will start receiving requests as
usual
45

46. RESOURCES - VARNISH
• https://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/wiki/VCLExamples
• https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/trunk/installation/upgrade.html
• http://nwlinux.com/varnish-caching-proxy-configuration-resources/
• http://nwlinux.com/mitigating-ddos-attacks-with-varnish-proxy/
• https://github.com/comotion/security.vcl
46

47. RESOURCES - MONITORING
• http://newrelic.com/docs/server/server-monitor-installation-redhat-and-
centos
• http://munin-monitoring.org/
• http://engineering.gomiso.com/2011/01/04/easy-monitoring-of-varnish-with-
munin/
• http://waste.mandragor.org/munin_tutorial/munin.html
• http://www.copperegg.com/product/pricing/
47

48. RESOURCES
• http://www.productionmonkeys.net/guides/web-server/varnish
• http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html
• http://www.webperformance.com/library/tutorials/
CalculateNumberOfLoadtestUsers/
48