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Accepted
Tim
Asked: 2016-01-16 00:39:57 +0800 CST

Nginx : Alternative to if inside location blocks for caching headers based on a variable

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I'm trying to use Nginx page caching instead of Wordpress caching. The caching seems to work fine, but I'm having trouble setting conditional caching headers based on a variable - whether a user is logged into wordpress. If a user is logged in I want no-cache headers applied, if not the page can be cached for a day by both Wordpress and the CDN. I'm finding I can only add one header inside an if statement.

I have read (but not fully understood, because it's late here) [if is evil][1]. I also found an answer on stack exchange (on my laptop, can't find it now) that said inside an if block only one add_header works.

Can anyone give me ideas for an alternative that might work better? I know I can combine the expires with the cache-control, but I want more headers in there, plus I want to understand and learn.

Here's a significantly simplified config with the relevant parts in place.

server {
  server_name example.com;

  set $skip_cache 0;
  # POST requests and urls with a query string should always go to PHP
  if ($request_method = POST) {
    set $skip_cache 1;
  }
  if ($query_string != "") {
    set $skip_cache 1;
  }
  # Don't cache uris containing the following segments.
  if ($request_uri ~* "/wp-admin/|/admin-*|/xmlrpc.php|wp-.*.php|/feed/|index.php|sitemap(_index)?.xml") {
    set $skip_cache 1;
  }
  # Don't use the cache for logged in users or recent commenters
  if ($http_cookie ~* "comment_author|wordpress_[a-f0-9]+|wp-postpass|wordpress_no_cache|wordpress_logged_in") {
    set $skip_cache 1;
  }

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /blog/index.php?args;
  }

  location ~ \.(hh|php)$ {
    fastcgi_keep_conn on;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    fastcgi_pass  php;
    include  fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;

    # Cache Stuff
    fastcgi_cache CACHE_NAME;
    fastcgi_cache_valid 200 1440m;
    add_header X-Cache $upstream_cache_status;

    fastcgi_cache_methods GET HEAD;
    fastcgi_cache_bypass $skip_cache;
    fastcgi_no_cache $skip_cache;

    add_header Z_ABCD "Test header";

    if ($skip_cache = 1) {
      add_header Cache-Control "private, no-cache, no-store";
      add_header CACHE_STATUS "CACHE NOT USED";
    }
    if ($skip_cache = 0) {
      add_header Cache-Control "public, s-maxage = 240";
      expires 1d;
      add_header CACHE_STATUS "USED CACHE";
    }

    add_header ANOTHER_HEADER "message";
    }
}
nginx

2 Answers

  1. An alternative to the if directive is the map directive. And assuming the CACHE_STATUS vs CACHE_STATIC is just a typo in your question, you could try this:

    map $http_cookie $expires {
    default 1d;
    ~*wordpress_logged_in off;
}
map $http_cookie $control {
    default "public, s-maxage = 240";
    ~*wordpress_logged_in "private, no-cache, no-store";
}
map $http_cookie $status {
    default "USED CACHE";
    ~*wordpress_logged_in "CACHE NOT USED";
}
server {
    ...
    location ~ \.(hh|php)$ {
        ...
        expires $expires;
        add_header Cache-Control $control;
        add_header CACHE_STATUS $status;
    }
}

    The map directives should be placed inside the http container (at the same level as the server block) as shown above.

    The map directive is documented here.

    • 1
  2. Best Answer

    I've come up with one solution myself, based on the answer @Richard Smith provided that didn't quite do what I needed. I've used the more cache-control header rather and dropped the unnecessary expires directive.

    This sits inside the server block

    if ($skip_cache = 1) {
  set $cacheControl "private, max-age=0, s-maxage=0, no-cache, no-store";
}
if ($skip_cache = 0) {
  set $cacheControl "public, max-age=86400, s-maxage=86400";
}

    Then this goes inside every applicable location block

    add_header Cache-Control $cacheControl;

    This means no "if" is required inside the location block. I think this solves the problem, but I'm still interested if anyone has alternative ideas.

    • 0