Re: [squid-users] anyone knows some info about youtube "range" parameter?

From: Amos Jeffries <squid3_at_treenet.co.nz>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:02:26 +1200

On 25/04/2012 6:02 a.m., Eliezer Croitoru wrote:
> as for some people asking me recently about youtube cache i have
> checked again and found that youtube changed their video uris and
> added an argument called "range" that is managed by the youtube player.
> the original url\uri dosnt include range but the youtube player is
> using this argument to save bandwidth.
>
> i can implement the cahing with ranges on nginx but i dont know yet
> the way that range works.
> it can be based on user bandwidth or "fixed" size of chunkes.
>
> if someone up to the mission of analyzing it a bit more to understand
> it so the "range" cache will be implemented i will be happy to get
> some help with it.
>
> Thanks,
> Eliezer
>
>

I took a look at it a while back...

I got as far as determining that the "range" was roughly byte-ranges as
per the HTTP spec BUT (and this is a huge BUT). Each response was
prefixed with some form of file intro bytes. Meaning the rages were not
strictly sub-bytes of some original object. At this point there is no
way for Squid to correctly generate the intro bytes, or to merge/split
these "ranges" for servicing other clients.

When used the transfer is relatively efficient, so the impact of
bypassing the storeurl cache feature is not too bad. The other option is
to re-write the URL without range and simply reply with the whole video
regardless. It is a nasty mapping problem with bandwidth waste either way.

That was a year or two ago, so it may be worth re-investigating.

Amos
Received on Wed Apr 25 2012 - 03:02:31 MDT

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