*_cache_revalidate directives

[Roman Arutyunyan]

Hello,

> On 09 Jul 2015, at 04:43, Alt <nginx-forum at nginx.us> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> From the documentation, I don't understand how the fastcgi_cache_revalidate
> (or scgi_cache_revalidate or proxy_cache_revalidate or
> uwsgi_cache_revalidate) works.
> Please, can someone explain what nginx does when cache is enabled and the
> revalidate directive is set to "on"?

Normally, when a cache entry is expired in nginx cache, nginx fetches a replacement from upstream.
If cache revalidation is enabled, nginx asks the upstream if the current (expired) entry is still
valid using “If-Modified-Since” and “If-None-Match” HTTP headers.  The upstream can reply with 
"304 Not Modified" to confirm the validity.  In this case the entry remains in cache until it
expires again.

--
Roman Arutyunyan