Varnish 2.0 beta 2 released

[Tollef Fog Heen]

It is our pleasure to announce the second beta release of Varnish 2.0.
This will hopefully be the last beta before entering release candidate
mode.

The beta can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=155816&package_id=173643

Since 1.1.2, we have implemented the following changes:

 * Backend health
 * ESI – Supporting only the sensible subset
 * A considerable amount of improvements to VCL: backend health, string representation of backend, etc.
 * Handle PUT/POST with pass
 * Random and round-robin directors
 * Saves objects past expiration date («grace»)
 * Multiple storage file support
 * URL-rewrites
 * PURGE-support based on regular expressions also over HTTP
 * Backend selection and load distribution
 * Directors can select by any metric they prefer
 * Restarts, allowing you to try the transaction again if you don’t like where you ended up.
 * Race condition in kqueue acceptor fixed
 * The hash string is now built by VCL, which means people can customize it
 * We have both “purge_hash” and “purge_url” as a result
 * The former allowing purges per vhost for instance.
 * New and less jumpy thread pool sizing algorithm
 * Swallow request body where necessary
 * Better TCP shutdown in pipe mode
 * Garbage collection of purge entries
 * Enhanced parameter tuneability – More knobs to tweak, and remember to be careful when trying them out!
 * Improved documentation
 * Better regression testing using varnishtest

The following known issues have been fixed since the last release (beta 1)

There are currently no known issues for this release.

    * FIXED: Wrong headers can be sent to backend
    * FIXED: Portability fixes for Solaris, OpenBSD

    * For a fix history since Beta 1 see http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/report/17
    * For a full fix history for the application see http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/report/16

On Linux, we have switched the memory allocator for the “malloc” backend
from the regular glibc malloc implementation to jemalloc. This can be
disabled by passing—disable-jemalloc when running configure. Please
report any problems or bugs you see as a result of using jemalloc.

Please take the beta for a testdrive, and let us know what you think,
and please remember to report your issues at
http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/newticket

Enjoy,
-- 
Tollef Fog Heen, Varnish Release Manager
on behalf of the Varnish team