What is varnish VCL
David Craig
Updated on April 16, 2026
Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) is a domain-specific language designed for use in Varnish. VCL allows users to configure Varnish exactly how they see fit. It gives total control of content caching policies, HTTP behavior, and routing.
What is Varnish cache used for?
Varnish Cache is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents. Varnish Cache is really, really fast. It typically speeds up delivery with a factor of 300 – 1000x, depending on your architecture.
What is varnish load balancer?
Varnish is a powerful HTTP load balancer (reverse proxy), which is also very good at caching. When running multiple TSDs, Varnish comes in handy to distribute the HTTP traffic across the TSDs. … Using Varnish will help you easily scale the amount of read capacity of your TSD cluster.
What is VCL file?
The VCL files are organized into subroutines. The different subroutines are executed at different times. One is executed when we get the request, another when files are fetched from the backend server. If you don’t call an action in your subroutine and it reaches the end Varnish will execute some built-in VCL code.Where is varnish VCL?
Open /etc/varnish/default. vcl in a text editor.
Is Varnish Cache good?
You can use Varnish to cache both dynamic and static content: this is an efficient solution to increase not only your website speed but also your server performance. According to its developers: “It can speed up delivery with a factor of 300 – 1000x, depending on your architecture. “
Do I need Varnish Cache?
Varnish Cache ensures pages of webshops do not have to be loaded over again. The performance and page load will benefit a lot from Varnish Cache. And that is exactly what you want: a lightning-fast webshop for all your visitors. It might be that the definition of Varnish Cache is not 100% clear.
What is varnish in Devops?
Varnish is a caching http reverse proxy which means it works as an intermediatery between your client and web server, receives the requests from the client and tries to answer them from the cache , In case if varnish is not able to answer the request from the cache it will forward the request to the backend web server …What is fastly VCL?
Fastly Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) is a domain-specific language derived from the Varnish proxy cache, which is part of Fastly’s platform architecture. … Those configurations are then distributed to all Fastly caches worldwide, loaded, and activated without requiring maintenance windows or service downtimes.
What is the difference between Redis and varnish?Redis: An in-memory database that persists on disk. Varnish Cache is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. … You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents.
Article first time published onIs varnish a proxy?
Varnish is a caching HTTP reverse proxy. It receives requests from clients and tries to answer them from the cache.
How do I know if my Magento 2 Varnish is working?
As per Magento Docs,you can also check that Varnish cache working or not as per below steps: Make sure the /var/page_cache directory is empty: Step1: Log in to your Magento server, or switch to, the Magento file system owner. Step3: Access one or more cacheable Magento pages by navigate some page randomly.
How do I know what port Varnish is running?
netstat. The preceding shows Varnish running on port 80 and Apache running on port 8080. If you do not see output for varnishd , make sure Varnish is running.
How do I exit Varnishstat?
Print program usage and exit. -I <glob> Field inclusion glob. Use backslash to escape characters.
How do I flush Varnish Cache?
Well, I suggest just restart varnish. It will purge all of the files because varnish keeps cache into memory. Assuming no change of URL or internal cache key, for a full flush the simplest approach would be to restart Varnish, as it maintains its cache in memory.
How do you install Varnish Cache?
- Install Varnish with the package manager: sudo apt install varnish.
- To avoid having your configuration overwritten by future updates, make a copy of the default: cd /etc/varnish sudo cp default.vcl user.vcl.
Where does Varnish store cache?
Varnish Cache stores content in pluggable modules called storage backends. It does this via its internal stevedore interface.
Is varnish a web server?
Varnish is a program that can increase the speed of a Web site while simultaneously reducing the load on the Web server. “Varnish is a “Web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy” – according to Varnish’s official website.
What is varnish WordPress?
Varnish is a full-page cache and HTTP preprocessor which can be used to speed up requests for a WordPress site. Setting up Varnish is a technical task, as it requires installing and configuring a system package on a web server, rather than just installing a plugin.
What is varnish technology?
Varnish is an HTTP accelerator designed for content-heavy dynamic web sites as well as APIs. In contrast to other web accelerators, such as Squid, which began life as a client-side cache, or Apache and nginx, which are primarily origin servers, Varnish was designed as an HTTP accelerator.
What is custom VCL?
Last updated 2020-08-14. Fastly allows you create your own Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) files with specialized configurations. By uploading custom VCL files, you can use custom VCL and Fastly VCL together at the same time.
What is Fastly varnish?
At the core of Fastly is Varnish, an open source web accelerator that’s designed for high-performance content delivery. Varnish is the key to being able to accelerate dynamic content, APIs, and logic at the edge. One of the major benefits of open source is being able to add to it and change it to suit our needs.
What is Fastly company?
Company Description Fastly, Inc. provides real-time content delivery network services. It offers edge cloud platform, edge software development kit (SDK), content delivery and image optimization, video and streaming, cloud security, load balancing, and managed CDN.
What is varnish in AWS?
Product Overview. Varnish Cache is a web cache and reverse proxy used by millions of websites to speed up content delivery. Offloading content delivery using Varnish Cache’s reverse HTTP proxy technology also means you can reduce backend server load by up to 89%.
What is varnish language?
Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) is a domain-specific language designed for use in Varnish. VCL allows users to configure Varnish exactly how they see fit. … When a VCL configuration is loaded, Varnish translates the VCL code to C and compiles it to a shared object, which is then dynamically linked back into Varnish.
Is varnish a memory?
Varnish can be used for caching both the static and dynamic content on websites. In other words, it is a web application accelerator. Simply, Varnish cache is an intermediator between the client and the webserver. It serves the stored content in its memory.
What is Redis memcached and varnish used for?
Memcached and redis are actually data storage servers, specifically key-value storage servers. In terms of python you could say it’s one huge ‘dictionary’, you set values with a key and retrieve them by key.
What is the difference between Redis and Memcached?
When storing data, Redis stores data as specific data types, whereas Memcached only stores data as strings. Because of this, Redis can change data in place without having to re-upload the entire data value.
What is the difference between memcached and varnish?
Memcached can be used as an in-memory, distributed back-end for your application cache. Varnish can be used as a reverse proxy to externally cache HTTP requests. Varnish is in front of the webserver; it works as a reverse http proxy that caches. …
Does varnish work with https?
Varnish, at least in the open source version, does not support HTTPS. Varnish Software released Hitch a while ago, which can be used to terminate HTTPS in front of a Varnish caching proxy.
What is the difference between lacquer and varnish?
Unlike varnish, lacquer is a type of solvent based product. … Finally while varnishes give doors a semi-gloss or satin sheen finish, lacquers give you access to quite a wide range of different shades and sheen levels, so you’ve got more freedom of choice in terms of the colour of your internal door.