A web page in seven syscalls
Channel: Linux.conf.au 2014 -- Perth, Australia
Date: 2014-01-17

Presenter(s): Tollef Fog Heen
URL: https://lca2014.linux.org.au/schedule/30242/view_talk

Varnish Cache is a modern HTTP reverse proxy that takes advantage of the features found in modern CPUs such as multiple cores, massive threading, shared memory, virtual memory. The primary goals of Varnish are speed and flexibility. In terms of speed, Varnish delivers HTTP at wire speed and tens of thousands of requests per second. The flexibility comes from Varnish's domain specific language called VCL which is compiled to C and then loaded into the process.  With VCL, the administrator has full control over how requests are processed, where they are sent and what, if any modifications they are exposed to.

Other features include Edge Side Includes, compression handling, very cheap invalidation of arbitrary objects, IP based ACLs and full IPv6 support.

This talk will cover Varnish's architecture and a the tricks it uses to go fast and be flexible. It will be contrasted with more regular ways of solving the problems and how Varnish handles today's challenges for web sites. It will touch briefly on how plugins integrate into Varnish, but the main content is about Varnish itself.

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