When varnish works with other system, vcl configure is dynamically generated by the front system and set with vcl.inline. There is not a vcl file any more. In this case, we have to use vcl.inline. the following is my varnish_vcl_reload shell script using vcl.inline. Any suggestions are welcome. — wilson.sun330@gmail.com

varnish_vcl_reload

#!/bin/bash
#
# reload active vcl
# Sometimes, vcl_init needs to be re-run by reloading the active vcl.
# For example, a geoip database is loaded in vcl_init. When the database is updated,
# vcl_init needs to be re-run.
#
# This script saves the currently active vcl to a shell variable, and reloads it to varnish
# Wislon Sun <wilson.sun330@gmail> 
#
# This is free software, distributed under the standard 2 clause BSD license,
# see the LICENSE file in the Varnish documentation directory
#
# Requires GNU bash
#

usage="$(basename "$0") [-n ident] [-t timeout] [-S secretfile] -T [address]:port

where:
    -h  show this help text
    -n,t,S,T refer to varnishadm"

while getopts ':n:t:S:T:d:h' option; do
  case $option in
    n) ident=$OPTARG
       ;;
    t) timeout=$OPTARG
       ;;
    S) secretfile=$OPTARG
       ;;
    T) addressport=$OPTARG
       ;;
    h) echo "$usage"
       exit
       ;;
    :) printf "missing argument for -%s\n" "$OPTARG" >&2
       echo "$usage" >&2
       exit 1
       ;;
   \?) echo "illegal option: -$OPTARG" >&2
       echo "$usage" >&2
       exit 1
       ;;
  esac
done

# Done parsing, set up command
VARNISHADM="varnishadm"

if [ ! -z "$ident" ]; then
        VARNISHADM="$VARNISHADM -n $ident"
fi

if [ ! -z "$timeout" ]; then
        VARNISHADM="$VARNISHADM -t $timeout"
fi

if [ ! -z "$secretfile" ]; then
        VARNISHADM="$VARNISHADM -S $secretfile"
fi

if [ ! -z "$addressport" ]; then
        VARNISHADM="$VARNISHADM -T $addressport"
fi

# Check if we are able to connect at all
if ! $VARNISHADM vcl.list >> /dev/null 2>&1; then
        echo "Unable to run \"$VARNISHADM vcl.list\""
        exit 1
fi

# find current config
current_config=$( $VARNISHADM vcl.list | awk ' /^active/ { print $3 } ' )

# save current config to a variable
vclcontent=` $VARNISHADM vcl.show $current_config | sed 's/["\]/\\\\&/g' | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\\\n/g' `

timestamp=`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`
$VARNISHADM vcl.inline "vreload$timestamp" '"'$vclcontent'"' >> /dev/null 2>&1
vstring=`varnishadm -n aeroflow vcl.list|grep "vreload$timestamp"`
if [ ! -z "$vstring" ]; then
   $VARNISHADM vcl.use "vreload$timestamp" >> /dev/null 2>&1
   $VARNISHADM vcl.discard $current_config >> /dev/null 2>&1
   echo "successfully reload current vcl config"
   exit 0
else
   echo "failed to save current vcl config"
   exit 1
fi