make varnish still respond if backend dead

[Sascha Ottolski]

Hi,

sorry if this is FAQ: what can I do to make varnish respond to request 
if it's backend is dead. should return cache hits, of course, and 
a "proxy error" or something for a miss.

and how can I prevent varnish to cache "404" for objects it couldn't 
fetch due to a dead backend? at least I think that is what happened, as 
varnish reported 404 for URLs that definetely exist; the dead backend 
seems to be the only logical explanation why varnish could think it's 
not.

oh, and is there a way to put the local hostname in a header? I have two 
proxies, load balanced by LVS, so using server.ip reports the same IP 
on both nodes.


Thanks, Sascha