Using varnishadm you can reload your vcl after editing it, without restarting varnish.
That means your cache is intact:
# varnishadm varnish> vcl.load default /usr/local/varnish/etc/varnish/default.vcl 200 VCL compiled. varnish> vcl.use default 200 varnish>
What I found really practical was that this way I also could detect and fix errors in my vcl config, without varnish going down.
varnish> vcl.load default /usr/local/varnish/etc/varnish/default.vcl
106
Message from VCC-compiler:
Expected ')' got '{'
(program line 73), at
('input' Line 105 Pos 51)
if ( !( req.url ~ "(login_form|manage)") {
--------------------------------------------------#
Running VCC-compiler failed, exit 1
VCL compilation failed
The method mentioned here reloads a vcl file into varnish. But there may be not this vcl file.
When varnish works with other system, vcl configure is dynamically generated by the front system and set with vcl.inline.
There is not a vcl file any more. In this case, we have to use vcl.inline.
the following is my varnish_vcl_reload shell script using vcl.inline. Any suggestions
are welcome. — wilson.sun330@gmail.com
————————————————————————————————-
#!/bin/bash
#
# reload active vcl
# Sometimes, vcl_init needs to be re-run by reloading the active vcl.
# For example, a geoip database is loaded in vcl_init. When the database is updated,
# vcl_init needs to be re-run.
#
# This script saves the currently active vcl to a shell variable, and reloads it to varnish
# Wislon Sun
#
usage=”$(basename “$0″) [-n ident] [-t timeout] [-S secretfile] -T [address]:port
where:
-h show this help text
-n,t,S,T refer to varnishadm”
while getopts ‘:n:t:S:T:d:h’ option; do
case $option in
n) ident=$OPTARG
;;
t) timeout=$OPTARG
;;
S) secretfile=$OPTARG
;;
T) addressport=$OPTARG
;;
h) echo “$usage”
exit
;;
🙂 printf “missing argument for -%s\n” “$OPTARG” >&2
echo “$usage” >&2
exit 1
;;
\?) echo “illegal option: -$OPTARG” >&2
echo “$usage” >&2
exit 1
;;
esac
done
# Done parsing, set up command
VARNISHADM=”varnishadm”
if [ ! -z “$ident” ]; then
VARNISHADM=”$VARNISHADM -n $ident”
fi
if [ ! -z “$timeout” ]; then
VARNISHADM=”$VARNISHADM -t $timeout”
fi
if [ ! -z “$secretfile” ]; then
VARNISHADM=”$VARNISHADM -S $secretfile”
fi
if [ ! -z “$addressport” ]; then
VARNISHADM=”$VARNISHADM -T $addressport”
fi
# Check if we are able to connect at all
if ! $VARNISHADM vcl.list >> /dev/null 2>&1; then
echo “Unable to run \”$VARNISHADM vcl.list\””
exit 1
fi
# find current config
current_config=$( $VARNISHADM vcl.list | awk ‘ /^active/ { print $3 } ‘ )
# save current config to a variable
vclcontent= $VARNISHADM vcl.show $current_config | sed ‘s/[“\]/\\\\&/g’ | sed ‘:a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\\\n/g’
timestamp=date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S
$VARNISHADM vcl.inline “vreload$timestamp” ‘”‘$vclcontent’”‘ >> /dev/null 2>&1
vstring=varnishadm -n aeroflow vcl.list|grep “vreload$timestamp”
if [ ! -z “$vstring” ]; then
$VARNISHADM vcl.use “vreload$timestamp” >> /dev/null 2>&1
$VARNISHADM vcl.discard $current_config >> /dev/null 2>&1
echo “successfully reload current vcl config”
exit 0
else
echo “failed to save current vcl config”
exit 1
fi
Thank you for your varnish_vcl_reload shell script using vcl.inline, I will try it out ! 🙂