Commit f9a7c966 authored by Poul-Henning Kamp's avatar Poul-Henning Kamp

I started writing the tutorial, but got sidetracked on how to carry

through the hands-on.  Ended up starting a glossary instead.



git-svn-id: http://www.varnish-cache.org/svn/trunk/varnish-cache@4729 d4fa192b-c00b-0410-8231-f00ffab90ce4
parent d9414f00
.. _glossary:
Varnish Glossary
================
.. glossary::
:sorted:
.. comment:
This file will be sorted automagically during formatting,
so we keep the source in subject order to make sure we
cover all bases.
.. comment: "components of varnish --------------------------------"
varnishd (NB: with 'd')
This is the actual Varnish cache program. There is only
one program, but when you run it, you will get *two*
processes: The "master" and the "worker" (or "child").
master (process)
One of the two processes in the varnishd program.
The master proces is a manager/nanny process which handles
configuration, parameters, compilation of :term:VCL etc.
but it does never get near the actual HTTP traffic.
worker (process)
The worker process is started and configured by the master
process. This is the process that does all the work you actually
want varnish to do. If the worker dies, the master will try start
it again, to keep your website alive..
backend
The HTTP server varnishd is caching for. This can be
any sort of device that handles HTTP requests, including, but
not limited to: a webserver, a CMS, a load-balancer
another varnishd, etc.
client
The program which sends varnishd a HTTP request, typically
a browser, but do not forget to think about spiders, robots
script-kiddies and criminals.
varnishstat
Program which presents varnish statistics counters.
varnishlog
Program which presents varnish transaction log in native format.
varnishtop
Program which gives real-time "top-X" list view of transaction log.
varnishncsa
Program which presents varnish transaction log in "NCSA" format.
varnishhist
Eye-candy program showing responsetime histogram in 1980ies
ASCII-art style.
varnishtest
Program to test varnishd's behaviour with, simulates backend
and client according to test-scripts.
.. comment: "components of traffic ---------------------------------"
header
A HTTP protocol header, like "Accept-Encoding:".
request
What the client sends to varnishd and varnishd sends to the backend.
response
What the backend returns to varnishd and varnishd returns to
the client. When the response is stored in varnishd's cache,
we call it an object.
body
The bytes that make up the contents of the object, varnishd
does not care if they are in HTML, XML, JPEG or even EBCDIC,
to varnishd they are just bytes.
object
The cached version of a response. Varnishd receives a reponse
from the backend and creates an object, from which it can
produce cached responses to clients.
.. comment: "configuration of varnishd -----------------------------"
VCL
Varnish Configuration Language, a small specialized language
for instructing Varnish how to behave.
.. comment: "actions in VCL ----------------------------------------"
hit
An object Varnish delivers from cache.
miss
An object Varnish fetches from the backend. It may or may not
be putin the cache, that depends.
pass
An object Varnish does not try to cache, but simply fetches
from the backend and hands to the client.
pipe
Varnish just moves the bytes between client and backend, it
does not try to understand what they mean.
......@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ Contents:
installation/index.rst
tutorial/index.rst
reference/index.rst
glossary/index.rst
Indices and tables
==================
......
.. _Installation:
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Varnish Installation
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
......
......@@ -4,6 +4,36 @@
Varnish Tutorial
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Welcome to the Varnish Tutorial, we hope this will help you get to
know and understand Varnish.
Most tutorials are written in "subject-order", as the old Peanuts
strip goes::
Jogging: A Handbook
Author: S. Noopy
Chapter 1: Left foot
It was a dark and stormy night...
This is great when the reader has no choice, or nothing better to do, but
read the entire document before starting.
We have taken the other approach: "breadth-first", because experience
has shown us that Varnish users wants to get things running, and then
polish up things later on.
With that in mind, we have written the tutorial so you can break off,
as Calvin tells Ms. Wormwood, "when my brain is full for today", and
come back later and learn more.
That also means that right from the start, we will have several
things going on in parallel and you will need at least four, sometimes
more, terminal windows at the same time, to run the examples.
//todo// First simple example (pending varnishtest support)
.. todo::
starting varnish with -d, seeing a transaction go through
explain varnishlog output for a miss and a hit
......
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