Understanding caching

[Francis Daly]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 10:45:31AM +0200, Daniel Eschner wrote:

Hi there,

> i need to understand the caching options better. So, i have serval Questions ;)

I think in this mail, you refer to the caching done by your browser.

That is entirely controlled by your browser; but it will probably respect
the suggestions that the server makes.

"A web page" is typically one request for some html, plus multiple
requests for css, js, and image files.

Each of those requests is independent, and each of the responses can be
cached (or not) by your browser, as it sees fit.

>                 add_header        Cache-Control public;
>                 add_header        Cache-Control must-revalidate;
>                 expires           7d;

These lead to http response headers sent to the browser; how the browser
handles them it entirely its business. Essentially the server is
suggesting "do cache this, cache it for 7 days, and then check again".

You can look at the actual http response headers received by your browser,
and you can check its documentation for how it is expected to handle them.

(It is possible that other response headers are sent which say "do not
cache this".)

> No when i browser arround Chrome said „From cache“ that works fine for me but when i reload the Website it seems that only *.JPGs comming from the cache.

"reload" is probably an instruction to your browser to fetch the (first,
html) page again from outside its local cache.

If you follow a link and then use your browser's "back" button, that
can be an instruction to your browser to show the page again, from local
cache if possible.

Usually there is also an instruction available to your browser to invite
it to fetch the page again, from the origin web server (bypassing or
breaking through any intermediate caches).

In any case, the multiple subsequent css, js, image requests may be
handled from the local cache, or may be made to "the web", or may be
made to the origin web server. Your browser decides what requests,
if any, it will make.

> Is that a Browser issue or a nginx issue? Need to know where i have to search ;)

It seems like expected behaviour to me.

It is initially a browser issue.

If you can see a request that you think should not be made; and if you
can see the previous response that you think should have been used instead;
and if you can see a "please do not cache this" in that response; then you
can check where in your nginx that "please do not cache this" came from.

> Closing the browser and start again it dont came from cache - but as i understand i say it will expire in 7 Days - so why nit not comming from local cache?

The server said "please cache this for 7 days".

The browser may or may not have done that. Perhaps it never writes to
disk; or clears the disk cache on startup, or something.

Cheers,

	f
-- 
Francis Daly        francis at daoine.org