Varnish config advise

Question

I wonder if I can get some help. I am running a VPS with Varnish. This VPS is predominantly WordPress but does have a Joomla site running too. For some reason my Varnish config file decided it was going to go back to default so I have been having a range of problems as I was silly enough not to save my custom config file!

Here is my current config file:

# This is a basic VCL configuration file for varnish.  See the vcl(7)
# man page for details on VCL syntax and semantics.
# 
# Default backend definition.  Set this to point to your content
# server.
# 
backend default {
  .host = "LIVE IP";
  .port = "8080";
  .max_connections = 800;
}

acl purge { "localhost"; "127.0.0.1"; }

sub vcl_recv {
set req.grace = 2m;

# Set X-Forwarded-For header for logging in nginx
remove req.http.X-Forwarded-For;
set req.http.X-Forwarded-For = client.ip;

# Remove has_js and CloudFlare/Google Analytics __* cookies and statcounter is_unique
set req.http.Cookie = regsuball(req.http.Cookie, "(^|;\s*)(_[_a-z]+|has_js|is_unique)=[^;]*", "");
# Remove a ";" prefix, if present.
set req.http.Cookie = regsub(req.http.Cookie, "^;\s*", "");

# Either the admin pages or the login
if (req.url ~ "/wp-(login|admin|cron)") {
# Don't cache, pass to backend
return (pass);
}

# Remove the wp-settings-1 cookie
set req.http.Cookie = regsuball(req.http.Cookie, "wp-settings-1=[^;]+(; )?", "");

# Remove the wp-settings-time-1 cookie
set req.http.Cookie = regsuball(req.http.Cookie, 
"wp-settings-time-1=[^;]+(; )?", "");

# Remove the wp test cookie
set req.http.Cookie = regsuball(req.http.Cookie, 
"wordpress_test_cookie=[^;]+(;)?", "");

# Static content unique to the theme can be cached (so no user uploaded images)
# The reason I don't take the wp-content/uploads is because of cache size on bigger blogs
# that would fill up with all those files getting pushed into cache
if (req.url ~ "wp-content/themes/" && req.url ~ 
"\.(css|js|png|gif|jp(e)?g)") {
unset req.http.cookie;
}

# Even if no cookies are present, I don't want my "uploads" to be cached due to their potential size
if (req.url ~ "/wp-content/uploads/") {
return (pass);
}

# any pages with captchas need to be excluded
if (req.url ~ "^/contact/" || req.url ~ "^/links/domains-for-sale/")
{
return(pass);
}

# Check the cookies for wordpress-specific items
if (req.http.Cookie ~ "wordpress_" || req.http.Cookie ~ "comment_") {
# A wordpress specific cookie has been set
return (pass);
}

# allow PURGE from localhost
if (req.request == "PURGE") {
if (!client.ip ~ purge) {
error 405 "Not allowed.";
}
return (lookup);
}

# Force lookup if the request is a no-cache request from the client
if (req.http.Cache-Control ~ "no-cache") {
return (pass);
}

# Try a cache-lookup
return (lookup);

}

sub vcl_fetch {
#set obj.grace = 5m;
set beresp.grace = 2m;

}

sub vcl_hit {
if (req.request == "PURGE") {
purge;
error 200 "Purged.";
}
}

sub vcl_miss {
if (req.request == "PURGE") {
purge;
error 200 "Purged.";
}
}

The issue I am having is that my WP core files are moved to a subfolder called 'core' and I change my login URL to /administrator instead of wp-login.php. so to login, I'd go to either domain.com/administrator or domain.com/core/administrator. If I type the domain sans /core/ it would direct to */core/administrator.

The way that Varnish works, it doesn't allow me to log into the WP-admin side of the site which I think is due to the cookies. I added /administrator to the VCL-config text but it didn't seem to work.

Is anyone able to please help me out with this as I'd rather not revert all my installations back to wp-login.php.

I also don't seem to be able to login to SSH and purge the cache like I could before. I honestly can't remember the config I had before but I am sure I am missing something, so if anyone is able to improve on this code to make it work as best as it can (or whether I have missed important things out entirely, specifically with Joomla) then help would be greatly appreciated.

I don't make theme on the fly but I do have some users logging into various sites hosted on the VPS to add/change posts so getting the cache to purge properly would be fantastic as I'm beginning to pull my hair out!

Thanks everyone.

Answer 1

To make PURGE work, you can try to add your VPS hostname in "acl purge" section. I know I had to do that on my VPS and Varnish v4.

And for wp admin part, it should not be caches at all, so try changeing this part:

# Either the admin pages or the login
if (req.url ~ "/wp-(login|admin|cron)") {
# Don't cache, pass to backend
return (pass);
}

into this:

# Either the admin pages or the login
if (req.url ~ "/core/administrator" || req.url ~ "/administrator") {
# Don't cache, pass to backend
return (pass);
}