Re: http acel mode and frequently changing pages

Greg Wohletz wrote:
> I have squid running in acelerator mode in front of an apache server
> on our main web server. I have compiled in the expires module in
> apache and on a page that changes frequently have the following in
> the .htaccess file:
>
> ExpiresActive On
> ExpiresDefault A300
 
> Because most of the web pages are stored on a fileserver and not
> on the web server itself. I would like frequently accessed web
> pages to be cached on the web servers disk to reduce the load on
> the network and on the fileserver.

And many others share similar situations.

Squid handles freshness in the same way regardless if it is running as a
accelerator or as a proxy.

Things you need to look into are:

1. Is the time in sync on your servers?
   env TZ=GMT date

2. What is the expires and/or last-modified headers sent by the origin
server?

3. Your squid.conf refresh rules. Any options overriding expires there?

How to find the headers of a request:

HTTP server:
squid/bin/client -m HEAD -h your.www.server -p 80 /path/to/file.html

Squid proxy:
squid/bin/client -m HEAD -h your.squid.server -p 80
http://your.www.server/path/to/file.html

(assuming both runs on port 80).

---
Henrik Nordstrom
Spare time Squid hacker