HTTP Cache¶

The nature of rich web applications means that they’re dynamic. No matter how efficient your application, each request will always contain more overhead than serving a static file.

And for most Web applications, that’s fine. Symfony2 is lightning fast, and unless you’re doing some serious heavy-lifting, each request will come back quickly without putting too much stress on your server.

But as your site grows, that overhead can become a problem. The processing that’s normally performed on every request should be done only once. This is exactly what caching aims to accomplish.

Caching on the Shoulders of Giants¶

The most effective way to improve performance of an application is to cache the full output of a page and then bypass the application entirely on each subsequent request. Of course, this isn’t always possible for highly dynamic websites, or is it? In this chapter, we’ll show you how the Symfony2 cache system works and why we think this is the best possible approach.

The Symfony2 cache system is different because it relies on the simplicity and power of the HTTP cache as defined in the HTTP specification. Instead of reinventing a caching methodology, Symfony2 embraces the standard that defines basic communication on the Web. Once you understand the fundamental HTTP validation and expiration caching models, you’ll be ready to master the Symfony2 cache system.

For the purposes of learning how to cache with Symfony2, we’ll cover the subject in four steps:

Step 1: A gateway cache, or reverse proxy, is an independent layer that sits in front of your application. The reverse proxy caches responses as they’re returned from your application and answers requests with cached responses before they hit your application. Symfony2 provides its own reverse proxy, but any reverse proxy can be used.
Step 2: HTTP cache headers are used to communicate with the gateway cache and any other caches between your application and the client. Symfony2 provides sensible defaults and a powerful interface for interacting with the cache headers.
Step 3: HTTP expiration and validation are the two models used for determining whether cached content is fresh (can be reused from the cache) or stale (should be regenerated by the application).
Step 4: Edge Side Includes (ESI) allow HTTP cache to be used to cache page fragments (even nested fragments) independently. With ESI, you can even cache an entire page for 60 minutes, but an embedded sidebar for only 5 minutes.

Since caching with HTTP isn’t unique to Symfony, many articles already exist on the topic. If you’re new to HTTP caching, we highly recommend Ryan Tomayko’s article Things Caches Do. Another in-depth resource is Mark Nottingham’s Cache Tutorial.

Caching with a Gateway Cache¶

When caching with HTTP, the cache is separated from your application entirely and sits between your application and the client making the request.

The job of the cache is to accept requests from the client and pass them back to your application. The cache will also receive responses back from your application and forward them on to the client. The cache is the “middle-man” of the request-response communication between the client and your application.

Along the way, the cache will store each response that is deemed “cacheable” (See Introduction to HTTP Caching). If the same resource is requested again, the cache sends the cached response to the client, ignoring your application entirely.

This type of cache is known as a HTTP gateway cache and many exist such as Varnish, Squid in reverse proxy mode, and the Symfony2 reverse proxy.

Types of Caches¶

But a gateway cache isn’t the only type of cache. In fact, the HTTP cache headers sent by your application are consumed and interpreted by up to three different types of caches:

Browser caches: Every browser comes with its own local cache that is mainly useful for when you hit “back” or for images and other assets. The browser cache is a private cache as cached resources aren’t shared with anyone else.
Proxy caches: A proxy is a shared cache as many people can be behind a single one. It’s usually installed by large corporations and ISPs to reduce latency and network traffic.
Gateway caches: Like a proxy, it’s also a shared cache but on the server side. Installed by network administrators, it makes websites more scalable, reliable and performant.

Tip

Gateway caches are sometimes referred to as reverse proxy caches, surrogate caches, or even HTTP accelerators.

Note

The significance of private versus shared caches will become more obvious as we talk about caching responses containing content that is specific to exactly one user (e.g. account information).

Each response from your application will likely go through one or both of the first two cache types. These caches are outside of your control but follow the HTTP cache directions set in the response.

Symfony2 Reverse Proxy¶

Symfony2 comes with a reverse proxy (also called a gateway cache) written in PHP. Enable it and cacheable responses from your application will start to be cached right away. Installing it is just as easy. Each new Symfony2 application comes with a pre-configured caching kernel (AppCache) that wraps the default one (AppKernel). The caching Kernel is the reverse proxy.

To enable caching, modify the code of a front controller to use the caching kernel:

// web/app.php

require_once __DIR__.'/../app/bootstrap.php.cache';
require_once __DIR__.'/../app/AppKernel.php';
require_once __DIR__.'/../app/AppCache.php';

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

$kernel = new AppKernel('prod', false);
$kernel->loadClassCache();
// wrap the default AppKernel with the AppCache one
$kernel = new AppCache($kernel);
$kernel->handle(Request::createFromGlobals())->send();

The caching kernel will immediately act as a reverse proxy - caching responses from your application and returning them to the client.

Tip

The cache kernel has a special getLog() method that returns a string representation of what happened in the cache layer. In the development environment, use it to debug and validate your cache strategy:

error_log($kernel->getLog());

The AppCache object has a sensible default configuration, but it can be finely tuned via a set of options you can set by overriding the getOptions() method:

// app/AppCache.php

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\HttpCache\HttpCache;

class AppCache extends HttpCache
{
    protected function getOptions()
    {
        return array(
            'debug'                  => false,
            'default_ttl'            => 0,
            'private_headers'        => array('Authorization', 'Cookie'),
            'allow_reload'           => false,
            'allow_revalidate'       => false,
            'stale_while_revalidate' => 2,
            'stale_if_error'         => 60,
        );
    }
}

Tip

Unless overridden in getOptions(), the debug option will be set to automatically be the debug value of the wrapped AppKernel.

Here is a list of the main options:

default_ttl: The number of seconds that a cache entry should be considered fresh when no explicit freshness information is provided in a response. Explicit Cache-Control or Expires headers override this value (default: 0);
private_headers: Set of request headers that trigger “private” Cache-Control behavior on responses that don’t explicitly state whether the response is public or private via a Cache-Control directive. (default: Authorization and Cookie);
allow_reload: Specifies whether the client can force a cache reload by including a Cache-Control “no-cache” directive in the request. Set it to true for compliance with RFC 2616 (default: false);
allow_revalidate: Specifies whether the client can force a cache revalidate by including a Cache-Control “max-age=0” directive in the request. Set it to true for compliance with RFC 2616 (default: false);
stale_while_revalidate: Specifies the default number of seconds (the granularity is the second as the Response TTL precision is a second) during which the cache can immediately return a stale response while it revalidates it in the background (default: 2); this setting is overridden by the stale-while-revalidate HTTP Cache-Control extension (see RFC 5861);
stale_if_error: Specifies the default number of seconds (the granularity is the second) during which the cache can serve a stale response when an error is encountered (default: 60). This setting is overridden by the stale-if-error HTTP Cache-Control extension (see RFC 5861).

If debug is true, Symfony2 automatically adds a X-Symfony-Cache header to the response containing useful information about cache hits and misses.

The Symfony2 reverse proxy is a great tool to use when developing your website or when you deploy your website to a shared host where you cannot install anything beyond PHP code. But being written in PHP, it cannot be as fast as a proxy written in C. That’s why we highly recommend you to use Varnish or Squid on your production servers if possible. The good news is that the switch from one proxy server to another is easy and transparent as no code modification is needed in your application. Start easy with the Symfony2 reverse proxy and upgrade later to Varnish when your traffic increases.

For more information on using Varnish with Symfony2, see the How to use Varnish cookbook chapter.

Note

The performance of the Symfony2 reverse proxy is independent of the complexity of the application. That’s because the application kernel is only booted when the request needs to be forwarded to it.

Introduction to HTTP Caching¶

To take advantage of the available cache layers, your application must be able to communicate which responses are cacheable and the rules that govern when/how that cache should become stale. This is done by setting HTTP cache headers on the response.

Tip

Keep in mind that “HTTP” is nothing more than the language (a simple text language) that web clients (e.g. browsers) and web servers use to communicate with each other. When we talk about HTTP caching, we’re talking about the part of that language that allows clients and servers to exchange information related to caching.

HTTP specifies four response cache headers that we’re concerned with:

Cache-Control
Expires
ETag
Last-Modified

The most important and versatile header is the Cache-Control header, which is actually a collection of various cache information.

Note

Each of the headers will be explained in full detail in the HTTP Expiration and Validation section.

The Cache-Control Header¶

The Cache-Control header is unique in that it contains not one, but various pieces of information about the cacheability of a response. Each piece of information is separated by a comma:

Cache-Control: private, max-age=0, must-revalidate

Cache-Control: max-age=3600, must-revalidate

Symfony provides an abstraction around the Cache-Control header to make its creation more manageable:

$response = new Response();

// mark the response as either public or private
$response->setPublic();
$response->setPrivate();

// set the private or shared max age
$response->setMaxAge(600);
$response->setSharedMaxAge(600);

// set a custom Cache-Control directive
$response->headers->addCacheControlDirective('must-revalidate', true);

Public vs Private Responses¶

Both gateway and proxy caches are considered “shared” caches as the cached content is shared by more than one user. If a user-specific response were ever mistakenly stored by a shared cache, it might be returned later to any number of different users. Imagine if your account information were cached and then returned to every subsequent user who asked for their account page!

To handle this situation, every response may be set to be public or private:

public: Indicates that the response may be cached by both private and shared caches;
private: Indicates that all or part of the response message is intended for a single user and must not be cached by a shared cache.

Symfony conservatively defaults each response to be private. To take advantage of shared caches (like the Symfony2 reverse proxy), the response will need to be explicitly set as public.

Safe Methods¶

HTTP caching only works for “safe” HTTP methods (like GET and HEAD). Being safe means that you never change the application’s state on the server when serving the request (you can of course log information, cache data, etc). This has two very reasonable consequences:

You should never change the state of your application when responding to a GET or HEAD request. Even if you don’t use a gateway cache, the presence of proxy caches mean that any GET or HEAD request may or may not actually hit your server.
Don’t expect PUT, POST or DELETE methods to cache. These methods are meant to be used when mutating the state of your application (e.g. deleting a blog post). Caching them would prevent certain requests from hitting and mutating your application.

Caching Rules and Defaults¶

HTTP 1.1 allows caching anything by default unless there is an explicit Cache-Control header. In practice, most caches do nothing when requests have a cookie, an authorization header, use a non-safe method (i.e. PUT, POST, DELETE), or when responses have a redirect status code.

Symfony2 automatically sets a sensible and conservative Cache-Control header when none is set by the developer by following these rules:

If no cache header is defined (Cache-Control, Expires, ETag or Last-Modified), Cache-Control is set to no-cache, meaning that the response will not be cached;
If Cache-Control is empty (but one of the other cache headers is present), its value is set to private, must-revalidate;
But if at least one Cache-Control directive is set, and no ‘public’ or private directives have been explicitly added, Symfony2 adds the private directive automatically (except when s-maxage is set).

HTTP Expiration and Validation¶

The HTTP specification defines two caching models:

With the expiration model, you simply specify how long a response should be considered “fresh” by including a Cache-Control and/or an Expires header. Caches that understand expiration will not make the same request until the cached version reaches its expiration time and becomes “stale”.
When pages are really dynamic (i.e. their representation changes often), the validation model is often necessary. With this model, the cache stores the response, but asks the server on each request whether or not the cached response is still valid. The application uses a unique response identifier (the Etag header) and/or a timestamp (the Last-Modified header) to check if the page has changed since being cached.

The goal of both models is to never generate the same response twice by relying on a cache to store and return “fresh” responses.

The HTTP specification defines a simple but powerful language in which clients and servers can communicate. As a web developer, the request-response model of the specification dominates our work. Unfortunately, the actual specification document - RFC 2616 - can be difficult to read.

There is an on-going effort (HTTP Bis) to rewrite the RFC 2616. It does not describe a new version of HTTP, but mostly clarifies the original HTTP specification. The organization is also improved as the specification is split into seven parts; everything related to HTTP caching can be found in two dedicated parts (P4 - Conditional Requests and P6 - Caching: Browser and intermediary caches).

As a web developer, we strongly urge you to read the specification. Its clarity and power - even more than ten years after its creation - is invaluable. Don’t be put-off by the appearance of the spec - its contents are much more beautiful than its cover.

Expiration¶

The expiration model is the more efficient and straightforward of the two caching models and should be used whenever possible. When a response is cached with an expiration, the cache will store the response and return it directly without hitting the application until it expires.

The expiration model can be accomplished using one of two, nearly identical, HTTP headers: Expires or Cache-Control.

Expiration with the `Expires` Header¶

According to the HTTP specification, “the Expires header field gives the date/time after which the response is considered stale.” The Expires header can be set with the setExpires() Response method. It takes a DateTime instance as an argument:

$date = new DateTime();
$date->modify('+600 seconds');

$response->setExpires($date);

The resulting HTTP header will look like this:

Expires: Thu, 01 Mar 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Note

The setExpires() method automatically converts the date to the GMT timezone as required by the specification.

Note that in HTTP versions before 1.1 the origin server wasn’t required to send the Date header. Consequently the cache (e.g. the browser) might need to rely onto his local clock to evaluate the Expires header making the lifetime calculation vulnerable to clock skew. Another limitation of the Expires header is that the specification states that “HTTP/1.1 servers should not send Expires dates more than one year in the future.”

Expiration with the `Cache-Control` Header¶

Because of the Expires header limitations, most of the time, you should use the Cache-Control header instead. Recall that the Cache-Control header is used to specify many different cache directives. For expiration, there are two directives, max-age and s-maxage. The first one is used by all caches, whereas the second one is only taken into account by shared caches:

// Sets the number of seconds after which the response
// should no longer be considered fresh
$response->setMaxAge(600);

// Same as above but only for shared caches
$response->setSharedMaxAge(600);

The Cache-Control header would take on the following format (it may have additional directives):

Cache-Control: max-age=600, s-maxage=600

Validation¶

When a resource needs to be updated as soon as a change is made to the underlying data, the expiration model falls short. With the expiration model, the application won’t be asked to return the updated response until the cache finally becomes stale.

The validation model addresses this issue. Under this model, the cache continues to store responses. The difference is that, for each request, the cache asks the application whether or not the cached response is still valid. If the cache is still valid, your application should return a 304 status code and no content. This tells the cache that it’s ok to return the cached response.

Under this model, you mainly save bandwidth as the representation is not sent twice to the same client (a 304 response is sent instead). But if you design your application carefully, you might be able to get the bare minimum data needed to send a 304 response and save CPU also (see below for an implementation example).

Tip

The 304 status code means “Not Modified”. It’s important because with this status code do not contain the actual content being requested. Instead, the response is simply a light-weight set of directions that tell cache that it should use its stored version.

Like with expiration, there are two different HTTP headers that can be used to implement the validation model: ETag and Last-Modified.

Validation with the `ETag` Header¶

The ETag header is a string header (called the “entity-tag”) that uniquely identifies one representation of the target resource. It’s entirely generated and set by your application so that you can tell, for example, if the /about resource that’s stored by the cache is up-to-date with what your application would return. An ETag is like a fingerprint and is used to quickly compare if two different versions of a resource are equivalent. Like fingerprints, each ETag must be unique across all representations of the same resource.

Let’s walk through a simple implementation that generates the ETag as the md5 of the content:

public function indexAction()
{
    $response = $this->render('MyBundle:Main:index.html.twig');
    $response->setETag(md5($response->getContent()));
    $response->isNotModified($this->getRequest());

    return $response;
}

The Response::isNotModified() method compares the ETag sent with the Request with the one set on the Response. If the two match, the method automatically sets the Response status code to 304.

This algorithm is simple enough and very generic, but you need to create the whole Response before being able to compute the ETag, which is sub-optimal. In other words, it saves on bandwidth, but not CPU cycles.

In the Optimizing your Code with Validation section, we’ll show how validation can be used more intelligently to determine the validity of a cache without doing so much work.

Tip

Symfony2 also supports weak ETags by passing true as the second argument to the :method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Response::setETag` method.

Validation with the `Last-Modified` Header¶

The Last-Modified header is the second form of validation. According to the HTTP specification, “The Last-Modified header field indicates the date and time at which the origin server believes the representation was last modified.” In other words, the application decides whether or not the cached content has been updated based on whether or not it’s been updated since the response was cached.

For instance, you can use the latest update date for all the objects needed to compute the resource representation as the value for the Last-Modified header value:

public function showAction($articleSlug)
{
    // ...

    $articleDate = new \DateTime($article->getUpdatedAt());
    $authorDate = new \DateTime($author->getUpdatedAt());

    $date = $authorDate > $articleDate ? $authorDate : $articleDate;

    $response->setLastModified($date);
    $response->isNotModified($this->getRequest());

    return $response;
}

The Response::isNotModified() method compares the If-Modified-Since header sent by the request with the Last-Modified header set on the response. If they are equivalent, the Response will be set to a 304 status code.

Note

The If-Modified-Since request header equals the Last-Modified header of the last response sent to the client for the particular resource. This is how the client and server communicate with each other and decide whether or not the resource has been updated since it was cached.

Optimizing your Code with Validation¶

The main goal of any caching strategy is to lighten the load on the application. Put another way, the less you do in your application to return a 304 response, the better. The Response::isNotModified() method does exactly that by exposing a simple and efficient pattern:

public function showAction($articleSlug)
{
    // Get the minimum information to compute
    // the ETag or the Last-Modified value
    // (based on the Request, data is retrieved from
    // a database or a key-value store for instance)
    $article = // ...

    // create a Response with a ETag and/or a Last-Modified header
    $response = new Response();
    $response->setETag($article->computeETag());
    $response->setLastModified($article->getPublishedAt());

    // Check that the Response is not modified for the given Request
    if ($response->isNotModified($this->getRequest())) {
        // return the 304 Response immediately
        return $response;
    } else {
        // do more work here - like retrieving more data
        $comments = // ...

        // or render a template with the $response you've already started
        return $this->render(
            'MyBundle:MyController:article.html.twig',
            array('article' => $article, 'comments' => $comments),
            $response
        );
    }
}

When the Response is not modified, the isNotModified() automatically sets the response status code to 304, removes the content, and removes some headers that must not be present for 304 responses (see :method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Response::setNotModified`).

Varying the Response¶

So far, we’ve assumed that each URI has exactly one representation of the target resource. By default, HTTP caching is done by using the URI of the resource as the cache key. If two people request the same URI of a cacheable resource, the second person will receive the cached version.

Sometimes this isn’t enough and different versions of the same URI need to be cached based on one or more request header values. For instance, if you compress pages when the client supports it, any given URI has two representations: one when the client supports compression, and one when it does not. This determination is done by the value of the Accept-Encoding request header.

In this case, we need the cache to store both a compressed and uncompressed version of the response for the particular URI and return them based on the request’s Accept-Encoding value. This is done by using the Vary response header, which is a comma-separated list of different headers whose values trigger a different representation of the requested resource:

Vary: Accept-Encoding, User-Agent

Tip

This particular Vary header would cache different versions of each resource based on the URI and the value of the Accept-Encoding and User-Agent request header.

The Response object offers a clean interface for managing the Vary header:

// set one vary header
$response->setVary('Accept-Encoding');

// set multiple vary headers
$response->setVary(array('Accept-Encoding', 'User-Agent'));

The setVary() method takes a header name or an array of header names for which the response varies.

Expiration and Validation¶

You can of course use both validation and expiration within the same Response. As expiration wins over validation, you can easily benefit from the best of both worlds. In other words, by using both expiration and validation, you can instruct the cache to serve the cached content, while checking back at some interval (the expiration) to verify that the content is still valid.

More Response Methods¶

The Response class provides many more methods related to the cache. Here are the most useful ones:

// Marks the Response stale
$response->expire();

// Force the response to return a proper 304 response with no content
$response->setNotModified();

Additionally, most cache-related HTTP headers can be set via the single setCache() method:

// Set cache settings in one call
$response->setCache(array(
    'etag'          => $etag,
    'last_modified' => $date,
    'max_age'       => 10,
    's_maxage'      => 10,
    'public'        => true,
    // 'private'    => true,
));

Using Edge Side Includes¶

Gateway caches are a great way to make your website perform better. But they have one limitation: they can only cache whole pages. If you can’t cache whole pages or if parts of a page has “more” dynamic parts, you are out of luck. Fortunately, Symfony2 provides a solution for these cases, based on a technology called ESI, or Edge Side Includes. Akamaï wrote this specification almost 10 years ago, and it allows specific parts of a page to have a different caching strategy than the main page.

The ESI specification describes tags you can embed in your pages to communicate with the gateway cache. Only one tag is implemented in Symfony2, include, as this is the only useful one outside of Akamaï context:

<html>
    <body>
        Some content

        <!-- Embed the content of another page here -->
        <esi:include src="http://..." />

        More content
    </body>
</html>

Note

Notice from the example that each ESI tag has a fully-qualified URL. An ESI tag represents a page fragment that can be fetched via the given URL.

When a request is handled, the gateway cache fetches the entire page from its cache or requests it from the backend application. If the response contains one or more ESI tags, these are processed in the same way. In other words, the gateway cache either retrieves the included page fragment from its cache or requests the page fragment from the backend application again. When all the ESI tags have been resolved, the gateway cache merges each into the main page and sends the final content to the client.

All of this happens transparently at the gateway cache level (i.e. outside of your application). As you’ll see, if you choose to take advantage of ESI tags, Symfony2 makes the process of including them almost effortless.

Using ESI in Symfony2¶

First, to use ESI, be sure to enable it in your application configuration:

YAML

# app/config/config.yml
framework:
    # ...
    esi: { enabled: true }

XML

<!-- app/config/config.xml -->
<framework:config ...>
    <!-- ... -->
    <framework:esi enabled="true" />
</framework:config>

PHP

// app/config/config.php
$container->loadFromExtension('framework', array(
    // ...
    'esi'    => array('enabled' => true),
));

Now, suppose we have a page that is relatively static, except for a news ticker at the bottom of the content. With ESI, we can cache the news ticker independent of the rest of the page.

public function indexAction()
{
    $response = $this->render('MyBundle:MyController:index.html.twig');
    $response->setSharedMaxAge(600);

    return $response;
}

In this example, we’ve given the full-page cache a lifetime of ten minutes. Next, let’s include the news ticker in the template by embedding an action. This is done via the render helper (See Embedding Controllers for more details).

As the embedded content comes from another page (or controller for that matter), Symfony2 uses the standard render helper to configure ESI tags:

Twig

{% render '...:news' with {}, {'standalone': true} %}

PHP

<?php echo $view['actions']->render('...:news', array(), array('standalone' => true)) ?>

By setting standalone to true, you tell Symfony2 that the action should be rendered as an ESI tag. You might be wondering why you would want to use a helper instead of just writing the ESI tag yourself. That’s because using a helper makes your application work even if there is no gateway cache installed. Let’s see how it works.

When standalone is false (the default), Symfony2 merges the included page content within the main one before sending the response to the client. But when standalone is true, and if Symfony2 detects that it’s talking to a gateway cache that supports ESI, it generates an ESI include tag. But if there is no gateway cache or if it does not support ESI, Symfony2 will just merge the included page content within the main one as it would have done were standalone set to false.

Note

Symfony2 detects if a gateway cache supports ESI via another Akamaï specification that is supported out of the box by the Symfony2 reverse proxy.

The embedded action can now specify its own caching rules, entirely independent of the master page.

public function newsAction()
{
  // ...

  $response->setSharedMaxAge(60);
}

With ESI, the full page cache will be valid for 600 seconds, but the news component cache will only last for 60 seconds.

A requirement of ESI, however, is that the embedded action be accessible via a URL so the gateway cache can fetch it independently of the rest of the page. Of course, an action can’t be accessed via a URL unless it has a route that points to it. Symfony2 takes care of this via a generic route and controller. For the ESI include tag to work properly, you must define the _internal route:

YAML

# app/config/routing.yml
_internal:
    resource: "@FrameworkBundle/Resources/config/routing/internal.xml"
    prefix:   /_internal

XML

<!-- app/config/routing.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <import resource="@FrameworkBundle/Resources/config/routing/internal.xml" prefix="/_internal" />
</routes>

PHP

// app/config/routing.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;

$collection->addCollection($loader->import('@FrameworkBundle/Resources/config/routing/internal.xml', '/_internal'));

return $collection;

Tip

Since this route allows all actions to be accessed via a URL, you might want to protect it by using the Symfony2 firewall feature (by allowing access to your reverse proxy’s IP range). See the Securing by IP section of the Security Chapter for more information on how to do this.

One great advantage of this caching strategy is that you can make your application as dynamic as needed and at the same time, hit the application as little as possible.

Note

Once you start using ESI, remember to always use the s-maxage directive instead of max-age. As the browser only ever receives the aggregated resource, it is not aware of the sub-components, and so it will obey the max-age directive and cache the entire page. And you don’t want that.

The render helper supports two other useful options:

alt: used as the alt attribute on the ESI tag, which allows you to specify an alternative URL to be used if the src cannot be found;
ignore_errors: if set to true, an onerror attribute will be added to the ESI with a value of continue indicating that, in the event of a failure, the gateway cache will simply remove the ESI tag silently.

Cache Invalidation¶

“There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.” –Phil Karlton

You should never need to invalidate cached data because invalidation is already taken into account natively in the HTTP cache models. If you use validation, you never need to invalidate anything by definition; and if you use expiration and need to invalidate a resource, it means that you set the expires date too far away in the future.

Note

Since invalidation is a topic specific to each type of reverse proxy, if you don’t worry about invalidation, you can switch between reverse proxies without changing anything in your application code.

Actually, all reverse proxies provide ways to purge cached data, but you should avoid them as much as possible. The most standard way is to purge the cache for a given URL by requesting it with the special PURGE HTTP method.

Here is how you can configure the Symfony2 reverse proxy to support the PURGE HTTP method:

// app/AppCache.php
class AppCache extends Cache
{
    protected function invalidate(Request $request)
    {
        if ('PURGE' !== $request->getMethod()) {
            return parent::invalidate($request);
        }

        $response = new Response();
        if (!$this->getStore()->purge($request->getUri())) {
            $response->setStatusCode(404, 'Not purged');
        } else {
            $response->setStatusCode(200, 'Purged');
        }

        return $response;
    }
}

Caution

You must protect the PURGE HTTP method somehow to avoid random people purging your cached data.

Summary¶

Symfony2 was designed to follow the proven rules of the road: HTTP. Caching is no exception. Mastering the Symfony2 cache system means becoming familiar with the HTTP cache models and using them effectively. This means that, instead of relying only on Symfony2 documentation and code examples, you have access to a world of knowledge related to HTTP caching and gateway caches such as Varnish.

Learn more from the Cookbook¶

How to use Varnish to speed up my Website

HTTP Cache¶

Caching on the Shoulders of Giants¶

Caching with a Gateway Cache¶

Types of Caches¶

Symfony2 Reverse Proxy¶

Introduction to HTTP Caching¶

The Cache-Control Header¶

Public vs Private Responses¶

Safe Methods¶

Caching Rules and Defaults¶

HTTP Expiration and Validation¶

Expiration¶

Expiration with the Expires Header¶

Expiration with the Cache-Control Header¶

Validation¶

Validation with the ETag Header¶

Validation with the Last-Modified Header¶

Optimizing your Code with Validation¶

Varying the Response¶

Expiration and Validation¶

More Response Methods¶

Using Edge Side Includes¶

Using ESI in Symfony2¶

Cache Invalidation¶

Summary¶

Learn more from the Cookbook¶

Expiration with the `Expires` Header¶

Expiration with the `Cache-Control` Header¶

Validation with the `ETag` Header¶

Validation with the `Last-Modified` Header¶