The slicer vmod lets you enable caching of partial responses.
Instead of asking the backend for the full response, this enables splitting the object into smaller pieces, with Varnish issuing Range requests to the backend.
The range fetched will be based on the client’s Range header, ensuring we only fetch what is necessary in order to satisfy the client’s requested range.
The initial fetch where slicing is enabled will result in what we refer to as a segment meta object. This object will not store any response body bytes, and is merely used as a structure for cache lookup and verification of future range requests.
Hitting a segment meta object will trigger a special delivery mode that issues subrequests on its behalf. Each of these subrequests will ask for a specific range of the response. The segments will be stitched together on delivery, presented as a single contiguous response to the client.
Each subrequest will get a full execution of the VCL. In
varnishlog this will be presented as a set of linked
subrequest. Executing varnishlog with the -g request option will
present the top-level request, all subrequests and any fetches
logically grouped together.
Each segment subrequest will also contribute to varnishstat
counters: A single client request may lead to a number of cache hits
and misses, all depending on which segments are currently in cache.
The Slicer VMOD has two modes of operation: It can be invoked from
either sub vcl_backend_fetch or from sub vcl_backend_response.
The sub vcl_backend_fetch mode has the potential for slightly better
latency, however it is operating with limited knowledge when enabled.
When invoked from sub vcl_backend_fetch, the Slicer VMOD will turn the GET
request into a HEAD. If we then find that the response is eligible for
segmented fetch, we will issue separate requests for the relevant
parts. Since the initial request was a HEAD the connection can be
reused as usual for a future backend connection.
import slicer;
sub vcl_backend_fetch {
slicer.enable();
}
In the event that we later in the processing find that this particular response cannot be used, the fetch will result in a 503 error.
Recovering from a failed enable() can in this case be
accomplished via a retry in sub vcl_backend_error. The following VCL uses
slicer.failed() to show a possible VCL solution
sub vcl_backend_fetch {
if (!slicer.failed()) {
slicer.enable(size = 100KB);
}
}
sub vcl_backend_error {
if (slicer.failed()) {
return (retry);
}
}
This VCL will first attempt slicing and then do a retry with slicing disabled.
When invoked from sub vcl_backend_response, the Slicer VMOD will inspect
the response headers to see if it is eligible for segmented
caching. If successful, the backend connection will be closed without
receiving the response body bytes.
The key advantage of enabling the slicer in sub vcl_backend_response is
that we have the full response header set available to us, which not
only lets us know immediately if the object is a candidate for
slicing, but also offers the VCL user more information in deciding
whether a particular object should be sliced.
import slicer;
sub vcl_backend_response {
if (!slicer.enable(10M)) {
return (fail);
}
}
Exception handling is done explicitly in the VCL. In the example above
failure to enable slicing is handled via a return (fail)), which
will result in a 503.
An alternative error handling in the event of failure is to treat it
as a pass to avoid caching of a full-sized response. If the objective
is to also limit the consumption of transient memory, we recommend
enabling the transit_buffer feature, which will limit the amount
of read ahead and thus buffer size required for a pass.
import slicer;
sub vcl_backend_response {
if (!slicer.enable()) {
set beresp.transit_buffer = 5M;
return (pass);
}
}
There are a few preconditions that need to be satisfied. For a response to be eligible for slicing, the following requirements apply:
Response conditions:
Content-Encoding header.Content-Length header.Last-Modified or an ETag header.Request conditions:
The following conditions pertaining to the request will prevent slicing from being enabled.
return (pass)). For passed requests, a
Range header from the client will be maintained and it can thus do
Range requests to the backend just fine without help from the slicer.The lifetime of a single segment strictly follows the lifetime of the meta object. The TTL of the meta object when it was first inserted will apply to all segments, i.e. all segments belonging to a response will expire at the same time.
This also applies when it comes to invalidation: An invalidation of a segment meta object will also wipe all of its segments. Any form of invalidation is supported (e.g. ban, purge, ykey).
Replication of sliced objects is currently not supported and is explicitly disabled.
We may implement this in a future release.
The Slicer VMOD fully supports the Varnish Massive Storage Engine, also in persisted mode. Slicer can be enabled with an already populated persisted MSE store, without any need for reinitializing the MSE configuration.
For the case where Slicer has been enabled, followed by a downgrade to a previous non-Slicer-enabled Varnish version, some manual steps need to be taken.
For this case we will end up with segment meta objects and partial response objects in our cache, which the older Varnish version will not be able to make sense of. The result of this is that Varnish will serve empty responses for the requests that would have been previously handled by the Slicer.
To remedy this, the following steps are required in the event of a downgrade where one wishes to maintain the MSE persisted store.
$ sudo varnishadm 'ban obj.http.slicer-meta ~ .'
$ sudo varnishadm 'ban obj.http.slicer-sub ~ .'
BOOL enable(BYTES size = 5242880)
Enables segmented fetch. Varnish will fetch at most size
bytes per fetch. If no size is provided, a default of 5MB will be used.
Accessible from sub vcl_backend_fetch and sub vcl_backend_response.
Arguments:
size accepts type BYTES with a default value of 5242880 optional
Type: Function
Returns: Bool
BOOL failed()
Indicates if the slicer was previously attempted enabled and failed. Otherwise returns false. This can be used for implementing VCL error handling. See example above.
Arguments: None
Type: Function
Returns: Bool
BOOL is_top()
Tells us if the ongoing transaction is a top-level segmented request. This is true if a previous call to enable() for this request succeeded and if we are now initiating a segmented fetch.
Accessible from sub vcl_deliver and sub vcl_backend_response.
Arguments: None
Type: Function
Returns: Bool
BOOL is_sub()
Tells us if the ongoing transaction is a partial fetch subrequest. Accessible from all VCL subroutines.
Arguments: None
Type: Function
Returns: Bool
The slicer VMOD is available in Varnish Cache Plus version 6.0.8r6 and later.