VIP8: No pipe in builtin.vcl in V5

Synopsis

No matter how VIP6: What does pipe mean in Varnish5? turns out, pipe will not work as it used to in V5, and we need to decide what to do about builtin::vcl_recv{}

The return(pipe) clause in builtin.vcl dates back to V1 where a lot of corner cases of HTTP were not implemented, but we have added those over time, and I belive today pass can handle all relevant HTTP traffic.

A couple of odd-ball requests remain, CONNECT, OPTIONS and TRACE, and pipe might still be a relevant handling in some settings, but in most cases they will be evidence of ill intent on the part of the client.

How?

Here is my suggestion:

    sub vcl_recv {
        if (req.method == "PRI" ||          /* HTTP/2.0 */
          req.method == "CONNECT" ||
          req.method == "OPTIONS" ||
          req.method == "TRACE") {
            return (synth(405));
        }
        if (req.method != "GET" && req.method != "HEAD") {
            /* We only deal with GET and HEAD by default */
            return (pass);
        }
        if (req.http.Authorization || req.http.Cookie) {
            /* Not cacheable by default */
            return (pass);
        }
        return (hash);
    }

Comments

• @fgsch: For CORS, you need the OPTIONS method for preflight requests.