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VARNISHD(1) VARNISHD(1)
NAME
varnishd - HTTP accelerator daemon
SYNOPSIS
varnishd
[-a [name=][listen_address[,PROTO]] [-b [host[:port]|path]] [-C]
[-d] [-F] [-f config] [-h type[,options]] [-I clifile] [-i
identity] [-j jail[,jailoptions]] [-l vsl] [-M address:port] [-n
workdir] [-P file] [-p param=value] [-r param[,param...]] [-S
secret-file] [-s [name=]kind[,options]] [-T address[:port]] [-t
TTL] [-V] [-W waiter]
varnishd [-x parameter|vsl|cli|builtin|optstring]
varnishd [-?]
DESCRIPTION
The varnishd daemon accepts HTTP requests from clients, passes them on
to a backend server and caches the returned documents to better satisfy
future requests for the same document.
OPTIONS
Basic options
-a_<[name=][listen_address[,PROTO]]>
Accept for client requests on the specified listen_address (see
below).
Name is referenced in logs. If name is not specified, "a0",
"a1", etc. is used.
PROTO can be "HTTP" (the default) or "PROXY". Both version 1
and 2 of the proxy protocol can be used.
Multiple -a arguments are allowed.
If no -a argument is given, the default -a :80 will listen to
all IPv4 and IPv6 interfaces.
-a_<[name=][ip_address][:port][,PROTO]>
The ip_address can be a host name ("localhost"), an IPv4
dotted-quad ("127.0.0.1") or an IPv6 address enclosed in square
brackets ("[::1]")
If port is not specified, port 80 (http) is used.
At least one of ip_address or port is required.
-a_<[name=][path][,PROTO][,user=name][,group=name][,mode=octal]>
(VCL4.1 and higher)
Accept connections on a Unix domain socket. Path must be
absolute ("/path/to/listen.sock") or "@" followed by the name of
an abstract socket ("@myvarnishd").
The user, group and mode sub-arguments may be used to specify
the permissions of the socket file -- use names for user and
group, and a 3-digit octal value for mode. These sub-arguments
do not apply to abstract sockets.
-b_<[host[:port]|path]>
Use the specified host as backend server. If port is not
specified, the default is 8080.
If the value of -b begins with /, it is interpreted as the
absolute path of a Unix domain socket to which Varnish connects.
In that case, the value of -b must satisfy the conditions
required for the .path field of a backend declaration, see
vcl(7). Backends with Unix socket addresses may only be used
with VCL versions >= 4.1.
-b can be used only once, and not together with f.
-f_config
Use the specified VCL configuration file instead of the builtin
default. See vcl(7) for details on VCL syntax.
If a single -f option is used, then the VCL instance loaded from
the file is named "boot" and immediately becomes active. If more
than one -f option is used, the VCL instances are named "boot0",
"boot1" and so forth, in the order corresponding to the -f
arguments, and the last one is named "boot", which becomes
active.
Either -b or one or more -f options must be specified, but not
both, and they cannot both be left out, unless -d is used to
start varnishd in debugging mode. If the empty string is
specified as the sole -f option, then varnishd starts without
starting the worker process, and the management process will
accept CLI commands. You can also combine an empty -f option
with an initialization script (-I option) and the child process
will be started if there is an active VCL at the end of the
initialization.
When used with a relative file name, config is searched in the
vcl_path. It is possible to set this path prior to using -f
options with a -p option. During startup, varnishd doesn't
complain about unsafe VCL paths: unlike the varnish-cli(7) that
could later be accessed remotely, starting varnishd requires
local privileges.
-n_workdir
Runtime directory for the shared memory, compiled VCLs etc.
In performance critical applications, this directory should be
on a RAM backed filesystem.
Relative paths will be appended to /var/run/ (NB: Binary
packages of Varnish may have adjusted this to the platform.)
The default value is /var/run/varnishd (NB: as above.)
Documentation options
For these options, varnishd prints information to standard output and
exits. When a -x option is used, it must be the only option (it outputs
documentation in reStructuredText, aka RST).
-?
Print the usage message.
-x_parameter
Print documentation of the runtime parameters (-p options), see
List of Parameters.
-x_vsl Print documentation of the tags used in the Varnish shared
memory log, see vsl(7).
-x_cli Print documentation of the command line interface, see
varnish-cli(7).
-x_builtin
Print the contents of the default VCL program builtin.vcl.
-x_optstring
Print the optstring parameter to getopt(3) to help writing
wrapper scripts.
Operations options
-F Do not fork, run in the foreground. Only one of -F or -d can be
specified, and -F cannot be used together with -C.
-T_<address[:port]>
Offer a management interface on the specified address and port.
See varnish-cli(7) for documentation of the management commands.
To disable the management interface use none.
-M_<address:port>
Connect to this port and offer the command line interface.
Think of it as a reverse shell. When running with -M and there
is no backend defined the child process (the cache) will not
start initially.
-P_file
Write the PID of the process to the specified file.
-i_identity
Specify the identity of the Varnish server. This can be accessed
using server.identity from VCL.
The server identity is used for the received-by field of Via
headers generated by Varnish. For this reason, it must be a
valid token as defined by the HTTP grammar.
If not specified the output of gethostname(3) is used, in which
case the syntax is assumed to be correct.
-I_clifile
Execute the management commands in the file given as clifile
before the the worker process starts, see CLI Command File.
Tuning options
-t_TTL Specifies the default time to live (TTL) for cached objects.
This is a shortcut for specifying the default_ttl run-time
parameter.
-p_<param=value>
Set the parameter specified by param to the specified value, see
List of Parameters for details. This option can be used multiple
times to specify multiple parameters.
-s_<[name=]type[,options]>
Use the specified storage backend. See Storage Backend section.
This option can be used multiple times to specify multiple
storage files. Name is referenced in logs, VCL, statistics, etc.
If name is not specified, "s0", "s1" and so forth is used.
-l_<vsl>
Specifies size of the space for the VSL records, shorthand for
-p vsl_space=<vsl>. Scaling suffixes like 'K' and 'M' can be
used up to (G)igabytes. See vsl_space for more information.
Security options
-r_<param[,param...]>
Make the listed parameters read only. This gives the system
administrator a way to limit what the Varnish CLI can do.
Consider making parameters such as cc_command,
vcc_allow_inline_c and vmod_path read only as these can
potentially be used to escalate privileges from the CLI.
-S_secret-file
Path to a file containing a secret used for authorizing access
to the management port. To disable authentication use none.
If this argument is not provided, a secret drawn from the system
PRNG will be written to a file called _.secret in the working
directory (see opt_n) with default ownership and permissions of
the user having started varnish.
Thus, users wishing to delegate control over varnish will
probably want to create a custom secret file with appropriate
permissions (ie. readable by a unix group to delegate control
to).
-j_<jail[,jailoptions]>
Specify the jailing mechanism to use. See Jail section.
Advanced, development and debugging options
-d Enables debugging mode: The parent process runs in the
foreground with a CLI connection on stdin/stdout, and the child
process must be started explicitly with a CLI command.
Terminating the parent process will also terminate the child.
Only one of -d or -F can be specified, and -d cannot be used
together with -C.
-C Print VCL code compiled to C language and exit. Specify the VCL
file to compile with the -f option. Either -f or -b must be used
with -C, and -C cannot be used with -F or -d.
-V Display the version number and exit. This must be the only
option.
-h_<type[,options]>
Specifies the hash algorithm. See Hash Algorithm section for a
list of supported algorithms.
-W_waiter
Specifies the waiter type to use.
Hash Algorithm
The following hash algorithms are available:
-h_critbit
self-scaling tree structure. The default hash algorithm in
Varnish Cache 2.1 and onwards. In comparison to a more
traditional B tree the critbit tree is almost completely
lockless. Do not change this unless you are certain what you're
doing.
-h_simple_list
A simple doubly-linked list. Not recommended for production
use.
-h_<classic[,buckets]>
A standard hash table. The hash key is the CRC32 of the object's
URL modulo the size of the hash table. Each table entry points
to a list of elements which share the same hash key. The buckets
parameter specifies the number of entries in the hash table.
The default is 16383.
Storage Backend
The argument format to define storage backends is:
-s_<[name]=kind[,options]>
If name is omitted, Varnish will name storages sN, starting with
s0 and incrementing N for every new storage.
For kind and options see details below.
Storages can be used in vcl as storage.name, so, for example if
myStorage was defined by -s myStorage=malloc,5G, it could be used in
VCL like so:
set beresp.storage = storage.myStorage;
A special name is Transient which is the default storage for
uncacheable objects as resulting from a pass, hit-for-miss or
hit-for-pass.
If no -s options are given, the default is:
-s default,100m
If no Transient storage is defined, the default is an unbound default
storage as if defined as:
-s Transient=default
The following storage types and options are available:
-s_<default[,size]>
The default storage type resolves to umem where available and
malloc otherwise.
-s_<malloc[,size]>
malloc is a memory based backend.
-s_<umem[,size]>
umem is a storage backend which is more efficient than malloc on
platforms where it is available.
See the section on umem in chapter Storage backends of The
Varnish Users Guide for details.
-s_<file,path[,size[,granularity[,advice]]]>
The file backend stores data in a file on disk. The file will be
accessed using mmap. Note that this storage provide no cache
persistence.
The path is mandatory. If path points to a directory, a
temporary file will be created in that directory and immediately
unlinked. If path points to a non-existing file, the file will
be created.
If size is omitted, and path points to an existing file with a
size greater than zero, the size of that file will be used. If
not, an error is reported.
Granularity sets the allocation block size. Defaults to the
system page size or the filesystem block size, whichever is
larger.
Advice tells the kernel how varnishd expects to use this mapped
region so that the kernel can choose the appropriate read-ahead
and caching techniques. Possible values are normal, random and
sequential, corresponding to MADV_NORMAL, MADV_RANDOM and
MADV_SEQUENTIAL madvise() advice argument, respectively.
Defaults to random.
-s_<persistent,path,size>
Persistent storage. Varnish will store objects in a file in a
manner that will secure the survival of most of the objects in
the event of a planned or unplanned shutdown of Varnish. The
persistent storage backend has multiple issues with it and will
likely be removed from a future version of Varnish.
Jail
Varnish jails are a generalization over various platform specific
methods to reduce the privileges of varnish processes. They may have
specific options. Available jails are:
-j_<solaris[,worker=`privspec`]>
Reduce privileges(5) for varnishd and sub-processes to the
minimally required set. Only available on platforms which have
the setppriv(2) call.
The optional worker argument can be used to pass a
privilege-specification (see ppriv(1)) by which to extend the
effective set of the varnish worker process. While extended
privileges may be required by custom vmods, not using the worker
option is always more secure.
Example to grant basic privileges to the worker process:
-j solaris,worker=basic
-j_<unix[,user=`user`][,ccgroup=`group`][,workuser=`user`]>
Default on all other platforms when varnishd is started with an
effective uid of 0 ("as root").
With the unix jail mechanism activated, varnish will switch to
an alternative user for subprocesses and change the effective
uid of the master process whenever possible.
The optional user argument specifies which alternative user to
use. It defaults to varnish.
The optional ccgroup argument specifies a group to add to
varnish subprocesses requiring access to a c-compiler. There is
no default.
The optional workuser argument specifies an alternative user to
use for the worker process. It defaults to vcache.
The users given for the user and workuser arguments need to have
the same primary ("login") group.
To set up a system for the default users with a group name
varnish, shell commands similar to these may be used:
groupadd varnish
useradd -g varnish -d /nonexistent -s /bin/false \
-c "Varnish-Cache Daemon User" varnish
useradd -g varnish -d /nonexistent -s /bin/false \
-c "Varnish-Cache Worker User" vcache
-j_none
last resort jail choice: With jail mechanism none, varnish will
run all processes with the privileges it was started with.
Management Interface
If the -T option was specified, varnishd will offer a command-line
management interface on the specified address and port. The
recommended way of connecting to the command-line management interface
is through varnishadm(1).
The commands available are documented in varnish-cli(7).
CLI Command File
The -I option makes it possible to run arbitrary management commands
when varnishd is launched, before the worker process is started. In
particular, this is the way to load configurations, apply labels to
them, and make a VCL instance active that uses those labels on startup:
vcl.load panic /etc/varnish_panic.vcl
vcl.load siteA0 /etc/varnish_siteA.vcl
vcl.load siteB0 /etc/varnish_siteB.vcl
vcl.load siteC0 /etc/varnish_siteC.vcl
vcl.label siteA siteA0
vcl.label siteB siteB0
vcl.label siteC siteC0
vcl.load main /etc/varnish_main.vcl
vcl.use main
Every line in the file, including the last line, must be terminated by
a newline or carriage return.
If a command in the file is prefixed with '-', failure will not abort
the startup.
Note that it is necessary to include an explicit vcl.use command to
select which VCL should be the active VCL when relying on CLI Command
File to load the configurations at startup.
RUN TIME PARAMETERS
Run Time Parameter Flags
Runtime parameters are marked with shorthand flags to avoid repeating
the same text over and over in the table below. The meaning of the
flags are:
• experimental
We have no solid information about good/bad/optimal values for this
parameter. Feedback with experience and observations are most
welcome.
• delayed
This parameter can be changed on the fly, but will not take effect
immediately.
• restart
The worker process must be stopped and restarted, before this
parameter takes effect.
• reload
The VCL programs must be reloaded for this parameter to take effect.
• wizard
Do not touch unless you really know what you're doing.
• only_root
Only works if varnishd is running as root.
Default Value Exceptions on 32 bit Systems
Be aware that on 32 bit systems, certain default or maximum values are
reduced relative to the values listed below, in order to conserve VM
space:
• workspace_client: 24k
• workspace_backend: 20k
• http_resp_size: 8k
• http_req_size: 12k
• gzip_buffer: 4k
• vsl_buffer: 4k
• vsl_space: 1G (maximum)
• thread_pool_stack: 64k
List of Parameters
This text is produced from the same text you will find in the CLI if
you use the param.show command:
accept_filter
NB: This parameter depends on a feature which is not available on all
platforms.
• Units: bool
• Default: on (if your platform supports accept filters)
Enable kernel accept-filters. This may require a kernel module to be
loaded to have an effect when enabled.
Enabling accept_filter may prevent some requests to reach Varnish in
the first place. Malformed requests may go unnoticed and not increase
the client_req_400 counter. GET or HEAD requests with a body may be
blocked altogether.
acceptor_sleep_decay
• Default: 0.9
• Minimum: 0
• Maximum: 1
• Flags: experimental
If we run out of resources, such as file descriptors or worker threads,
the acceptor will sleep between accepts. This parameter
(multiplicatively) reduce the sleep duration for each successful
accept. (ie: 0.9 = reduce by 10%)
acceptor_sleep_incr
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.000
• Minimum: 0.000
• Maximum: 1.000
• Flags: experimental
If we run out of resources, such as file descriptors or worker threads,
the acceptor will sleep between accepts. This parameter control how
much longer we sleep, each time we fail to accept a new connection.
acceptor_sleep_max
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.050
• Minimum: 0.000
• Maximum: 10.000
• Flags: experimental
If we run out of resources, such as file descriptors or worker threads,
the acceptor will sleep between accepts. This parameter limits how
long it can sleep between attempts to accept new connections.
auto_restart
• Units: bool
• Default: on
Automatically restart the child/worker process if it dies.
backend_idle_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 1.000
Timeout before we close unused backend connections.
backend_local_error_holddown
• Units: seconds
• Default: 10.000
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: experimental
When connecting to backends, certain error codes (EADDRNOTAVAIL,
EACCESS, EPERM) signal a local resource shortage or configuration issue
for which retrying connection attempts may worsen the situation due to
the complexity of the operations involved in the kernel. This
parameter prevents repeated connection attempts for the configured
duration.
backend_remote_error_holddown
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.250
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: experimental
When connecting to backends, certain error codes (ECONNREFUSED,
ENETUNREACH) signal fundamental connection issues such as the backend
not accepting connections or routing problems for which repeated
connection attempts are considered useless This parameter prevents
repeated connection attempts for the configured duration.
ban_cutoff
• Units: bans
• Default: 0
• Minimum: 0
• Flags: experimental
Expurge long tail content from the cache to keep the number of bans
below this value. 0 disables.
When this parameter is set to a non-zero value, the ban lurker
continues to work the ban list as usual top to bottom, but when it
reaches the ban_cutoff-th ban, it treats all objects as if they matched
a ban and expurges them from cache. As actively used objects get tested
against the ban list at request time and thus are likely to be
associated with bans near the top of the ban list, with ban_cutoff,
least recently accessed objects (the "long tail") are removed.
This parameter is a safety net to avoid bad response times due to bans
being tested at lookup time. Setting a cutoff trades response time for
cache efficiency. The recommended value is proportional to
rate(bans_lurker_tests_tested) / n_objects while the ban lurker is
working, which is the number of bans the system can sustain. The
additional latency due to request ban testing is in the order of
ban_cutoff / rate(bans_lurker_tests_tested). For example, for
rate(bans_lurker_tests_tested) = 2M/s and a tolerable latency of 100ms,
a good value for ban_cutoff may be 200K.
ban_dups
• Units: bool
• Default: on
Eliminate older identical bans when a new ban is added. This saves CPU
cycles by not comparing objects to identical bans. This is a waste of
time if you have many bans which are never identical.
ban_lurker_age
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 0.000
The ban lurker will ignore bans until they are this old. When a ban is
added, the active traffic will be tested against it as part of object
lookup. Because many applications issue bans in bursts, this parameter
holds the ban-lurker off until the rush is over. This should be set to
the approximate time which a ban-burst takes.
ban_lurker_batch
• Default: 1000
• Minimum: 1
The ban lurker sleeps ${ban_lurker_sleep} after examining this many
objects. Use this to pace the ban-lurker if it eats too many
resources.
ban_lurker_holdoff
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.010
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: experimental
How long the ban lurker sleeps when giving way to lookup due to lock
contention.
ban_lurker_sleep
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.010
• Minimum: 0.000
How long the ban lurker sleeps after examining ${ban_lurker_batch}
objects. Use this to pace the ban-lurker if it eats too many
resources. A value of zero will disable the ban lurker entirely.
between_bytes_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 0.000
We only wait for this many seconds between bytes received from the
backend before giving up the fetch. VCL values, per backend or per
backend request take precedence. This parameter does not apply to
pipe'ed requests.
cc_command
NB: The actual default value for this parameter depends on the Varnish
build environment and options.
• Default: exec $CC $CFLAGS %w -shared -o %o %s
• Flags: must_reload
The command used for compiling the C source code to a dlopen(3)
loadable object. The following expansions can be used:
• %s: the source file name
• %o: the output file name
• %w: the cc_warnings parameter
• %d: the raw default cc_command
• %D: the expanded default cc_command
• %n: the working directory (-n option)
• %%: a percent sign
Unknown percent expansion sequences are ignored, and to avoid future
incompatibilities percent characters should be escaped with a double
percent sequence.
The %d and %D expansions allow passing the parameter's default value to
a wrapper script to perform additional processing.
cc_warnings
NB: The actual default value for this parameter depends on the Varnish
build environment and options.
• Default: -Wall -Werror
• Flags: must_reload
Warnings used when compiling the C source code with the cc_command
parameter. By default, VCL is compiled with the same set of warnings as
Varnish itself.
cli_limit
• Units: bytes
• Default: 48k
• Minimum: 128b
• Maximum: 99999999b
Maximum size of CLI response. If the response exceeds this limit, the
response code will be 201 instead of 200 and the last line will
indicate the truncation.
cli_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 0.000
Timeout for the child's replies to CLI requests from the mgt_param.
clock_skew
• Units: seconds
• Default: 10
• Minimum: 0
How much clockskew we are willing to accept between the backend and our
own clock.
clock_step
• Units: seconds
• Default: 1.000
• Minimum: 0.000
How much observed clock step we are willing to accept before we panic.
connect_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 3.500
• Minimum: 0.000
Default connection timeout for backend connections. We only try to
connect to the backend for this many seconds before giving up. VCL can
override this default value for each backend and backend request.
critbit_cooloff
• Units: seconds
• Default: 180.000
• Minimum: 60.000
• Maximum: 254.000
• Flags: wizard
How long the critbit hasher keeps deleted objheads on the cooloff list.
debug
• Default: none
Enable/Disable various kinds of debugging.
none Disable all debugging
Use +/- prefix to set/reset individual bits:
req_state
VSL Request state engine
workspace
VSL Workspace operations
waitinglist
VSL Waitinglist events
syncvsl
Make VSL synchronous
hashedge
Edge cases in Hash
vclrel Rapid VCL release
lurker VSL Ban lurker
esi_chop
Chop ESI fetch to bits
flush_head
Flush after http1 head
vtc_mode
Varnishtest Mode
witness
Emit WITNESS lock records
vsm_keep
Keep the VSM file on restart
slow_acceptor
Slow down Acceptor
h2_nocheck
Disable various H2 checks
vmod_so_keep
Keep copied VMOD libraries
processors
Fetch/Deliver processors
protocol
Protocol debugging
vcl_keep
Keep VCL C and so files
lck Additional lock statistics
default_grace
• Units: seconds
• Default: 10s
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: obj_sticky
Default grace period. We will deliver an object this long after it has
expired, provided another thread is attempting to get a new copy.
default_keep
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0s
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: obj_sticky
Default keep period. We will keep a useless object around this long,
making it available for conditional backend fetches. That means that
the object will be removed from the cache at the end of ttl+grace+keep.
default_ttl
• Units: seconds
• Default: 2m
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: obj_sticky
The TTL assigned to objects if neither the backend nor the VCL code
assigns one.
experimental
• Default: none
Enable/Disable experimental features.
none Disable all experimental features
Use +/- prefix to set/reset individual bits:
drop_pools
Drop thread pools
feature
• Default: +validate_headers
Enable/Disable various minor features.
default
Set default value
none Disable all features.
Use +/- prefix to enable/disable individual feature:
http2 Enable HTTP/2 protocol support.
short_panic
Short panic message.
no_coredump
No coredumps. Must be set before child process starts.
https_scheme
Extract host from full URI in the HTTP/1 request line, if the
scheme is https.
http_date_postel
Tolerate non compliant timestamp headers like Date,
Last-Modified, Expires etc.
esi_ignore_https
Convert <esi:include src"https://... to http://...
esi_disable_xml_check
Allow ESI processing on non-XML ESI bodies
esi_ignore_other_elements
Ignore XML syntax errors in ESI bodies.
esi_remove_bom
Ignore UTF-8 BOM in ESI bodies.
esi_include_onerror
Parse the onerror attribute of <esi:include> tags.
wait_silo
Wait for persistent silos to completely load before serving
requests.
validate_headers
Validate all header set operations to conform to RFC7230.
busy_stats_rate
Make busy workers comply with thread_stats_rate.
fetch_chunksize
• Units: bytes
• Default: 16k
• Minimum: 4k
• Flags: experimental
The default chunksize used by fetcher. This should be bigger than the
majority of objects with short TTLs. Internal limits in the
storage_file module makes increases above 128kb a dubious idea.
fetch_maxchunksize
• Units: bytes
• Default: 0.25G
• Minimum: 64k
• Flags: experimental
The maximum chunksize we attempt to allocate from storage. Making this
too large may cause delays and storage fragmentation.
first_byte_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 0.000
Default timeout for receiving first byte from backend. We only wait for
this many seconds for the first byte before giving up. VCL can
override this default value for each backend and backend request. This
parameter does not apply to pipe'ed requests.
gzip_buffer
• Units: bytes
• Default: 32k
• Minimum: 2k
• Flags: experimental
Size of malloc buffer used for gzip processing. These buffers are used
for in-transit data, for instance gunzip'ed data being sent to a
client.Making this space to small results in more overhead, writes to
sockets etc, making it too big is probably just a waste of memory.
gzip_level
• Default: 6
• Minimum: 0
• Maximum: 9
Gzip compression level: 0=debug, 1=fast, 9=best
gzip_memlevel
• Default: 8
• Minimum: 1
• Maximum: 9
Gzip memory level 1=slow/least, 9=fast/most compression. Memory impact
is 1=1k, 2=2k, ... 9=256k.
h2_header_table_size
• Units: bytes
• Default: 4k
• Minimum: 0b
HTTP2 header table size. This is the size that will be used for the
HPACK dynamic decoding table.
h2_initial_window_size
• Units: bytes
• Default: 65535b
• Minimum: 65535b
• Maximum: 2147483647b
HTTP2 initial flow control window size.
h2_max_concurrent_streams
• Units: streams
• Default: 100
• Minimum: 0
HTTP2 Maximum number of concurrent streams. This is the number of
requests that can be active at the same time for a single HTTP2
connection.
h2_max_frame_size
• Units: bytes
• Default: 16k
• Minimum: 16k
• Maximum: 16777215b
HTTP2 maximum per frame payload size we are willing to accept.
h2_max_header_list_size
• Units: bytes
• Default: 2147483647b
• Minimum: 0b
HTTP2 maximum size of an uncompressed header list.
h2_rx_window_increment
• Units: bytes
• Default: 1M
• Minimum: 1M
• Maximum: 1G
• Flags: wizard
HTTP2 Receive Window Increments. How big credits we send in
WINDOW_UPDATE frames Only affects incoming request bodies (ie: POST,
PUT etc.)
h2_rx_window_low_water
• Units: bytes
• Default: 10M
• Minimum: 65535b
• Maximum: 1G
• Flags: wizard
HTTP2 Receive Window low water mark. We try to keep the window at
least this big Only affects incoming request bodies (ie: POST, PUT
etc.)
h2_rxbuf_storage
• Default: Transient
• Flags: must_restart
The name of the storage backend that HTTP/2 receive buffers should be
allocated from.
http1_iovs
• Units: struct iovec (=16 bytes)
• Default: 64
• Minimum: 5
• Maximum: 1024
• Flags: wizard
Number of io vectors to allocate for HTTP1 protocol transmission. A
HTTP1 header needs 7 + 2 per HTTP header field. Allocated from
workspace_thread.
http_gzip_support
• Units: bool
• Default: on
Enable gzip support. When enabled Varnish request compressed objects
from the backend and store them compressed. If a client does not
support gzip encoding Varnish will uncompress compressed objects on
demand. Varnish will also rewrite the Accept-Encoding header of clients
indicating support for gzip to:
Accept-Encoding: gzip
Clients that do not support gzip will have their Accept-Encoding header
removed. For more information on how gzip is implemented please see the
chapter on gzip in the Varnish reference.
When gzip support is disabled the variables beresp.do_gzip and
beresp.do_gunzip have no effect in VCL.
http_max_hdr
• Units: header lines
• Default: 64
• Minimum: 32
• Maximum: 65535
Maximum number of HTTP header lines we allow in
{req|resp|bereq|beresp}.http (obj.http is autosized to the exact number
of headers). Cheap, ~20 bytes, in terms of workspace memory. Note
that the first line occupies five header lines.
http_range_support
• Units: bool
• Default: on
Enable support for HTTP Range headers.
http_req_hdr_len
• Units: bytes
• Default: 8k
• Minimum: 40b
Maximum length of any HTTP client request header we will allow. The
limit is inclusive its continuation lines.
http_req_size
• Units: bytes
• Default: 32k
• Minimum: 0.25k
Maximum number of bytes of HTTP client request we will deal with. This
is a limit on all bytes up to the double blank line which ends the HTTP
request. The memory for the request is allocated from the client
workspace (param: workspace_client) and this parameter limits how much
of that the request is allowed to take up.
http_resp_hdr_len
• Units: bytes
• Default: 8k
• Minimum: 40b
Maximum length of any HTTP backend response header we will allow. The
limit is inclusive its continuation lines.
http_resp_size
• Units: bytes
• Default: 32k
• Minimum: 0.25k
Maximum number of bytes of HTTP backend response we will deal with.
This is a limit on all bytes up to the double blank line which ends the
HTTP response. The memory for the response is allocated from the
backend workspace (param: workspace_backend) and this parameter limits
how much of that the response is allowed to take up.
idle_send_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: delayed
Send timeout for individual pieces of data on client connections. May
get extended if 'send_timeout' applies.
When this timeout is hit, the session is closed.
See the man page for setsockopt(2) or socket(7) under SO_SNDTIMEO for
more information.
listen_depth
• Units: connections
• Default: 1024
• Minimum: 0
• Flags: must_restart
Listen queue depth.
lru_interval
• Units: seconds
• Default: 2.000
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: experimental
Grace period before object moves on LRU list. Objects are only moved
to the front of the LRU list if they have not been moved there already
inside this timeout period. This reduces the amount of lock operations
necessary for LRU list access.
max_esi_depth
• Units: levels
• Default: 5
• Minimum: 0
Maximum depth of esi:include processing.
max_restarts
• Units: restarts
• Default: 4
• Minimum: 0
Upper limit on how many times a request can restart.
max_retries
• Units: retries
• Default: 4
• Minimum: 0
Upper limit on how many times a backend fetch can retry.
max_vcl
• Default: 100
• Minimum: 0
Threshold of loaded VCL programs. (VCL labels are not counted.)
Parameter max_vcl_handling determines behaviour.
max_vcl_handling
• Default: 1
• Minimum: 0
• Maximum: 2
Behaviour when attempting to exceed max_vcl loaded VCL.
• 0 - Ignore max_vcl parameter.
• 1 - Issue warning.
• 2 - Refuse loading VCLs.
nuke_limit
• Units: allocations
• Default: 50
• Minimum: 0
• Flags: experimental
Maximum number of objects we attempt to nuke in order to make space for
a object body.
pcre2_depth_limit
• Default: 20
• Minimum: 1
The recursion depth-limit for the internal match logic in a
pcre2_match().
(See: pcre2_set_depth_limit() in pcre2 docs.)
This puts an upper limit on the amount of stack used by PCRE2 for
certain classes of regular expressions.
We have set the default value low in order to prevent crashes, at the
cost of possible regexp matching failures.
Matching failures will show up in the log as VCL_Error messages.
pcre2_jit_compilation
• Units: bool
• Default: on
Use the pcre2 JIT compiler if available.
pcre2_match_limit
• Default: 10000
• Minimum: 1
The limit for the number of calls to the internal match logic in
pcre2_match().
(See: pcre2_set_match_limit() in pcre2 docs.)
This parameter limits how much CPU time regular expression matching can
soak up.
ping_interval
• Units: seconds
• Default: 3
• Minimum: 0
• Flags: must_restart
Interval between pings from parent to child. Zero will disable pinging
entirely, which makes it possible to attach a debugger to the child.
pipe_sess_max
• Units: connections
• Default: 0
• Minimum: 0
Maximum number of sessions dedicated to pipe transactions.
pipe_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 0.000
Idle timeout for PIPE sessions. If nothing have been received in either
direction for this many seconds, the session is closed.
pool_req
• Default: 10,100,10
Parameters for per worker pool request memory pool.
The three numbers are:
min_pool
minimum size of free pool.
max_pool
maximum size of free pool.
max_age
max age of free element.
pool_sess
• Default: 10,100,10
Parameters for per worker pool session memory pool.
The three numbers are:
min_pool
minimum size of free pool.
max_pool
maximum size of free pool.
max_age
max age of free element.
pool_vbo
• Default: 10,100,10
Parameters for backend object fetch memory pool.
The three numbers are:
min_pool
minimum size of free pool.
max_pool
maximum size of free pool.
max_age
max age of free element.
prefer_ipv6
• Units: bool
• Default: off
Prefer IPv6 address when connecting to backends which have both IPv4
and IPv6 addresses.
rush_exponent
• Units: requests per request
• Default: 3
• Minimum: 2
• Flags: experimental
How many parked request we start for each completed request on the
object. NB: Even with the implict delay of delivery, this parameter
controls an exponential increase in number of worker threads.
send_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 600.000
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: delayed
Total timeout for ordinary HTTP1 responses. Does not apply to some
internally generated errors and pipe mode.
When 'idle_send_timeout' is hit while sending an HTTP1 response, the
timeout is extended unless the total time already taken for sending the
response in its entirety exceeds this many seconds.
When this timeout is hit, the session is closed
shortlived
• Units: seconds
• Default: 10.000
• Minimum: 0.000
Objects created with (ttl+grace+keep) shorter than this are always put
in transient storage.
sigsegv_handler
• Units: bool
• Default: on
• Flags: must_restart
Install a signal handler which tries to dump debug information on
segmentation faults, bus errors and abort signals.
syslog_cli_traffic
• Units: bool
• Default: on
Log all CLI traffic to syslog(LOG_INFO).
tcp_fastopen
NB: This parameter depends on a feature which is not available on all
platforms.
• Units: bool
• Default: off
Enable TCP Fast Open extension.
tcp_keepalive_intvl
NB: This parameter depends on a feature which is not available on all
platforms.
• Units: seconds
• Default: platform dependent
• Minimum: 1
• Maximum: 100
The number of seconds between TCP keep-alive probes. Ignored for Unix
domain sockets.
tcp_keepalive_probes
NB: This parameter depends on a feature which is not available on all
platforms.
• Units: probes
• Default: platform dependent
• Minimum: 1
• Maximum: 100
The maximum number of TCP keep-alive probes to send before giving up
and killing the connection if no response is obtained from the other
end. Ignored for Unix domain sockets.
tcp_keepalive_time
NB: This parameter depends on a feature which is not available on all
platforms.
• Units: seconds
• Default: platform dependent
• Minimum: 1
• Maximum: 7200
The number of seconds a connection needs to be idle before TCP begins
sending out keep-alive probes. Ignored for Unix domain sockets.
thread_pool_add_delay
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.000
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: experimental
Wait at least this long after creating a thread.
Some (buggy) systems may need a short (sub-second) delay between
creating threads. Set this to a few milliseconds if you see the
'threads_failed' counter grow too much.
Setting this too high results in insufficient worker threads.
thread_pool_destroy_delay
• Units: seconds
• Default: 1.000
• Minimum: 0.010
• Flags: delayed, experimental
Wait this long after destroying a thread.
This controls the decay of thread pools when idle(-ish).
thread_pool_fail_delay
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.200
• Minimum: 0.010
• Flags: experimental
Wait at least this long after a failed thread creation before trying to
create another thread.
Failure to create a worker thread is often a sign that the end is
near, because the process is running out of some resource. This delay
tries to not rush the end on needlessly.
If thread creation failures are a problem, check that thread_pool_max
is not too high.
It may also help to increase thread_pool_timeout and thread_pool_min,
to reduce the rate at which treads are destroyed and later recreated.
thread_pool_max
• Units: threads
• Default: 5000
• Minimum: thread_pool_min
• Flags: delayed
The maximum number of worker threads in each pool.
Do not set this higher than you have to, since excess worker threads
soak up RAM and CPU and generally just get in the way of getting work
done.
thread_pool_min
• Units: threads
• Default: 100
• Minimum: 5
• Maximum: thread_pool_max
• Flags: delayed
The minimum number of worker threads in each pool.
Increasing this may help ramp up faster from low load situations or
when threads have expired.
Technical minimum is 5 threads, but this parameter is strongly
recommended to be at least 10
thread_pool_reserve
• Units: threads
• Default: 0 (auto-tune: 5% of thread_pool_min)
• Maximum: 95% of thread_pool_min
• Flags: delayed
The number of worker threads reserved for vital tasks in each pool.
Tasks may require other tasks to complete (for example, client requests
may require backend requests, http2 sessions require streams, which
require requests). This reserve is to ensure that lower priority tasks
do not prevent higher priority tasks from running even under high load.
The effective value is at least 5 (the number of internal priority
classes), irrespective of this parameter.
thread_pool_stack
• Units: bytes
• Default: 80k
• Minimum: sysconf(_SC_THREAD_STACK_MIN)
• Flags: delayed
Worker thread stack size. This will likely be rounded up to a multiple
of 4k (or whatever the page_size might be) by the kernel.
The required stack size is primarily driven by the depth of the
call-tree. The most common relevant determining factors in varnish core
code are GZIP (un)compression, ESI processing and regular expression
matches. VMODs may also require significant amounts of additional
stack. The nesting depth of VCL subs is another factor, although
typically not predominant.
The stack size is per thread, so the maximum total memory required for
worker thread stacks is in the order of size = thread_pools x
thread_pool_max x thread_pool_stack.
Thus, in particular for setups with many threads, keeping the stack
size at a minimum helps reduce the amount of memory required by
Varnish.
On the other hand, thread_pool_stack must be large enough under all
circumstances, otherwise varnish will crash due to a stack overflow.
Usually, a stack overflow manifests itself as a segmentation fault (aka
segfault / SIGSEGV) with the faulting address being near the stack
pointer (sp).
Unless stack usage can be reduced, thread_pool_stack must be increased
when a stack overflow occurs. Setting it in 150%-200% increments is
recommended until stack overflows cease to occur.
thread_pool_timeout
• Units: seconds
• Default: 300.000
• Minimum: 10.000
• Flags: delayed, experimental
Thread idle threshold.
Threads in excess of thread_pool_min, which have been idle for at least
this long, will be destroyed.
thread_pool_watchdog
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 0.100
• Flags: experimental
Thread queue stuck watchdog.
If no queued work have been released for this long, the worker process
panics itself.
thread_pools
• Units: pools
• Default: 2
• Minimum: 1
• Maximum: 32
• Flags: delayed, experimental
Number of worker thread pools.
Increasing the number of worker pools decreases lock contention. Each
worker pool also has a thread accepting new connections, so for very
high rates of incoming new connections on systems with many cores,
increasing the worker pools may be required.
Too many pools waste CPU and RAM resources, and more than one pool for
each CPU is most likely detrimental to performance.
Can be increased on the fly, but decreases require a restart to take
effect, unless the drop_pools experimental debug flag is set.
thread_queue_limit
• Units: requests
• Default: 20
• Minimum: 0
• Flags: experimental
Permitted request queue length per thread-pool.
This sets the number of requests we will queue, waiting for an
available thread. Above this limit sessions will be dropped instead of
queued.
thread_stats_rate
• Units: requests
• Default: 10
• Minimum: 0
• Flags: experimental
Worker threads accumulate statistics, and dump these into the global
stats counters if the lock is free when they finish a job
(request/fetch etc.) This parameters defines the maximum number of
jobs a worker thread may handle, before it is forced to dump its
accumulated stats into the global counters.
timeout_idle
• Units: seconds
• Default: 5.000
• Minimum: 0.000
Idle timeout for client connections.
A connection is considered idle until we have received the full request
headers.
This parameter is particularly relevant for HTTP1 keepalive
connections which are closed unless the next request is received before
this timeout is reached.
timeout_linger
• Units: seconds
• Default: 0.050
• Minimum: 0.000
• Flags: experimental
How long the worker thread lingers on an idle session before handing it
over to the waiter. When sessions are reused, as much as half of all
reuses happen within the first 100 msec of the previous request
completing. Setting this too high results in worker threads not doing
anything for their keep, setting it too low just means that more
sessions take a detour around the waiter.
transit_buffer
• Units: bytes
• Default: 0b
• Minimum: 0b
The number of bytes which Varnish buffers for uncacheable backend
streaming fetches - in other words, how many bytes Varnish reads from
the backend ahead of what has been sent to the client. A zero value
means no limit, the object is fetched as fast as possible.
When dealing with slow clients, setting this parameter to non-zero can
prevent large uncacheable objects from being stored in full when the
intent is to simply stream them to the client. As a result, a slow
client transaction holds onto a backend connection until the end of the
delivery.
This parameter is the default to the VCL variable
beresp.transit_buffer, which can be used to control the transit buffer
per backend request.
vary_notice
• Units: variants
• Default: 10
• Minimum: 1
How many variants need to be evaluated to log a Notice that there might
be too many variants.
vcc_allow_inline_c
Deprecated alias for the vcc_feature parameter.
vcc_err_unref
Deprecated alias for the vcc_feature parameter.
vcc_feature
• Default: +err_unref,+unsafe_path
Enable/Disable various VCC behaviors.
default
Set default value
none Disable all behaviors.
Use +/- prefix to enable/disable individual behavior:
err_unref
Unreferenced VCL objects result in error.
allow_inline_c
Allow inline C code in VCL.
unsafe_path
Allow '/' in vmod & include paths. Allow 'import ... from
...'.
vcc_unsafe_path
Deprecated alias for the vcc_feature parameter.
vcl_cooldown
• Units: seconds
• Default: 600.000
• Minimum: 1.000
How long a VCL is kept warm after being replaced as the active VCL
(granularity approximately 30 seconds).
vcl_path
NB: The actual default value for this parameter depends on the Varnish
build environment and options.
• Default: ${sysconfdir}/varnish:${datadir}/varnish/vcl
Directory (or colon separated list of directories) from which relative
VCL filenames (vcl.load and include) are to be found. By default
Varnish searches VCL files in both the system configuration and shared
data directories to allow packages to drop their VCL files in a
standard location where relative includes would work.
vmod_path
NB: The actual default value for this parameter depends on the Varnish
build environment and options.
• Default: ${libdir}/varnish/vmods
Directory (or colon separated list of directories) where VMODs are to
be found.
vsl_buffer
• Units: bytes
• Default: 16k
• Minimum: vsl_reclen + 12 bytes
Bytes of (req-/backend-)workspace dedicated to buffering VSL records.
When this parameter is adjusted, most likely workspace_client and
workspace_backend will have to be adjusted by the same amount.
Setting this too high costs memory, setting it too low will cause more
VSL flushes and likely increase lock-contention on the VSL mutex.
vsl_mask
• Default:
-Debug,-ObjProtocol,-ObjStatus,-ObjReason,-ObjHeader,-VCL_trace,-ExpKill,-WorkThread,-Hash,-VfpAcct,-H2RxHdr,-H2RxBody,-H2TxHdr,-H2TxBody,-VdpAcct
Mask individual VSL messages from being logged.
default
Set default value
Use +/- prefix in front of VSL tag name to unmask/mask individual VSL
messages.
vsl_reclen
• Units: bytes
• Default: 255b
• Minimum: 16b
• Maximum: vsl_buffer - 12 bytes
Maximum number of bytes in SHM log record.
vsl_space
• Units: bytes
• Default: 80M
• Minimum: 1M
• Maximum: 4G
• Flags: must_restart
The amount of space to allocate for the VSL fifo buffer in the VSM
memory segment. If you make this too small, varnish{ncsa|log} etc will
not be able to keep up. Making it too large just costs memory
resources.
vsm_free_cooldown
• Units: seconds
• Default: 60.000
• Minimum: 10.000
• Maximum: 600.000
How long VSM memory is kept warm after a deallocation (granularity
approximately 2 seconds).
workspace_backend
• Units: bytes
• Default: 96k
• Minimum: 1k
• Flags: delayed
Bytes of HTTP protocol workspace for backend HTTP req/resp. If larger
than 4k, use a multiple of 4k for VM efficiency.
workspace_client
• Units: bytes
• Default: 96k
• Minimum: 9k
• Flags: delayed
Bytes of HTTP protocol workspace for clients HTTP req/resp. Use a
multiple of 4k for VM efficiency. For HTTP/2 compliance this must be
at least 20k, in order to receive fullsize (=16k) frames from the
client. That usually happens only in POST/PUT bodies. For other
traffic-patterns smaller values work just fine.
workspace_session
• Units: bytes
• Default: 0.75k
• Minimum: 384b
• Flags: delayed
Allocation size for session structure and workspace. The workspace
is primarily used for TCP connection addresses. If larger than 4k, use
a multiple of 4k for VM efficiency.
workspace_thread
• Units: bytes
• Default: 2k
• Minimum: 0.25k
• Maximum: 8k
• Flags: delayed
Bytes of auxiliary workspace per thread. This workspace is used for
certain temporary data structures during the operation of a worker
thread. One use is for the IO-vectors used during delivery. Setting
this parameter too low may increase the number of writev() syscalls,
setting it too high just wastes space. ~0.1k + UIO_MAXIOV *
sizeof(struct iovec) (typically = ~16k for 64bit) is considered the
maximum sensible value under any known circumstances (excluding exotic
vmod use).
EXIT CODES
Varnish and bundled tools will, in most cases, exit with one of the
following codes
• 0 OK
• 1 Some error which could be system-dependent and/or transient
• 2 Serious configuration / parameter error - retrying with the same
configuration / parameters is most likely useless
The varnishd master process may also OR its exit code
• with 0x20 when the varnishd child process died,
• with 0x40 when the varnishd child process was terminated by a signal
and
• with 0x80 when a core was dumped.
SEE ALSO
• varnishlog(1)
• varnishhist(1)
• varnishncsa(1)
• varnishstat(1)
• varnishtop(1)
• varnish-cli(7)
• vcl(7)
HISTORY
The varnishd daemon was developed by Poul-Henning Kamp in cooperation
with Verdens Gang AS and Varnish Software.
This manual page was written by Dag-Erling Smørgrav with updates by
Stig Sandbeck Mathisen <ssm@debian.org>, Nils Goroll and others.
COPYRIGHT
This document is licensed under the same licence as Varnish itself. See
LICENCE for details.
• Copyright (c) 2007-2015 Varnish Software AS
VARNISHD(1)
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