What is VCL?
VCL is an acronym for Varnish Configuration Language. In a VCL file, you configure how Varnish should behave. Sample VCL files will be included in this Wiki at a later stage.
Where is the documentation on VCL?
We are working on documenting VCL. The WIKI contains some examples.
Please also see man 7 vcl.
How do I load VCL file while Varnish is running?
Should I use ‘’pipe’’ or ‘’pass’’ in my VCL code? What is the difference?
When varnish does a pass it acts like a normal HTTP proxy. It reads the request and pushes it onto the backend. The next HTTP request can then be handled like any other.
pipe is only used when Varnish for some reason can’t handle the pass. pipe reads the request, pushes in onty the backend _only_ pushes bytes back and forth, with no other actions taken.
Since most HTTP clients will pipeline several requests into one connection, this might give you an undesirable result - as every subsequent request will reuse the existing pipe. Please see this article <http://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/wiki/VCLExamplePipe> for more details and a workaround.
Varnish versions prior to 2.0 does not support handling a request body with pass mode, so in those releases pipe is required for correct handling.
In 2.0 and later, pass will handle the request body correctly.
If you get 503 errors when making a request which is pass ed, make sure that you’re specifying the backend before returning from vcl_recv with pass.