Apache Module mod_cache
Summary
This module is experimental. Documentation is still under development...
mod_cache
implements an RFC 2616 compliant HTTP
content cache that can be used to cache either local or proxied content.
mod_cache
requires the services of one or more storage
management modules. Two storage management modules are included in
the base Apache distribution:
mod_disk_cache
- implements a disk based storage manager.
mod_mem_cache
- implements a memory based storage manager.
mod_mem_cache
can be configured to operate in two
modes: caching open file descriptors or caching objects in heap storage.
mod_mem_cache
can be used to cache locally generated content
or to cache backend server content for mod_proxy
when
configured using ProxyPass
(aka reverse proxy)
Content is stored in and retrieved from the cache using URI based keys. Content with
access protection is not cached.
Sample httpd.conf
#
# Sample Cache Configuration
#
LoadModule cache_module modules/mod_cache.so
<IfModule mod_cache.c>
#LoadModule disk_cache_module modules/mod_disk_cache.so
<IfModule mod_disk_cache.c>
CacheRoot c:/cacheroot
CacheSize 256
CacheEnable disk /
CacheDirLevels 5
CacheDirLength 3
</IfModule>
LoadModule mem_cache_module modules/mod_mem_cache.so
<IfModule mod_mem_cache.c>
CacheEnable mem /
MCacheSize 4096
MCacheMaxObjectCount 100
MCacheMinObjectSize 1
MCacheMaxObjectSize 2048
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
The CacheDefaultExpire
directive specifies a default time,
in seconds, to cache a document if neither an expiry date nor last-modified date are provided
with the document. The value specified with the CacheMaxExpire
directive does not override this setting.
The CacheDisable
directive instructs
mod_cache
to not cache urls at or below
url-string.
Example
CacheDisable /local_files
The CacheEnable
directive instructs
mod_cache
to cache urls at or below
url-string. The cache storage manager is specified with the
cache_type argument. cache_type mem
instructs mod_cache
to use the memory based storage
manager implemented by mod_mem_cache
.
cache_type disk
instructs
mod_cache
to use the disk based storage manager
implemented by mod_disk_cache
.
cache_type fd
instructs
mod_cache
to use the file descriptor cache implemented
by mod_mem_cache
.
In the event that the URL space overlaps between different
CacheEnable
directives (as in the example below),
each possible storage manager will be run until the first one that
actually processes the request. The order in which the storage managers are
run is determined by the order of the CacheEnable
directives in the configuration file.
CacheEnable mem /manual
CacheEnable fd /images
CacheEnable disk /
Description: | Percentage of document served, after which the server
will complete caching the file even if the request is cancelled. |
Syntax: | CacheForceCompletion Percentage |
Default: | CacheForceCompletion 60 |
Context: | server config, virtual host |
Status: | Experimental |
Module: | mod_cache |
Ordinarily, if a request is cancelled while the response is being
cached and delivered to the client the processing of the response will
stop and the cache entry will be removed. The
CacheForceCompletion
directive specifies a
threshold beyond which the document will continue to be cached to
completion, even if the request is cancelled.
The threshold is a percentage specified as a value between
1
and 100
. A value of 0
specifies that the default be used. A value of 100
will only cache documents that are served in their entirety. A value
between 60 and 90 is recommended.
Note:
This feature is currently not implemented.
Ordinarily, documents with no-cache or no-store header values will not be stored in the cache.
The CacheIgnoreCacheControl
directive allows this behavior to be overridden.
CacheIgnoreCacheControl
On tells the server to attempt to cache the document
even if it contains no-cache or no-store header values. Documents requiring authorization will
never be cached.
CacheIgnoreCacheControl On
Ordinarily, documents without a last-modified date are not cached.
Under some circumstances the last-modified date is removed (during
mod_include
processing for example) or not provided
at all. The CacheIgnoreNoLastMod
directive
provides a way to specify that documents without last-modified dates
should be considered for caching, even without a last-modified date.
If neither a last-modified date nor an expiry date are provided with
the document then the value specified by the
CacheDefaultExpire
directive will be used to
generate an expiration date.
In the event that a document does not provide an expiry date but does
provide a last-modified date, an expiry date can be calculated based on
the time since the document was last modified. The
CacheLastModifiedFactor
directive specifies a
factor to be used in the generation of this expiry date
according to the following formula:
expiry-period = time-since-last-modified-date * factor
expiry-date = current-date + expiry-period
For example, if the document was last modified 10 hours ago, and
factor is 0.1 then the expiry-period will be set to
10*0.1 = 1 hour. If the current time was 3:00pm then the computed
expiry-date would be 3:00pm + 1hour = 4:00pm.
If the expiry-period would be longer than that set by
CacheMaxExpire
, then the latter takes
precedence.
CacheLastModifiedFactor 0.5
The CacheMaxExpire
directive specifies the maximum number of
seconds for which cachable HTTP documents will be retained without checking the origin
server. Thus, documents will be out of date at most this number of seconds. This maximum
value is enforced even if an expiry date was supplied with the document.