[Zope] Caching/http-acceleration and proxying Zope-served con tent

[Ragnar Beer]

I started using mod_proxy, because I needed the configuration options 
(redirection etc.) and squid wouldn't cache ssl stuff. It's running 
very well since about six months now.

The downside is that it's really badly documented. BTW there is a new 
book by Ralf Engelschall that you can download for free from 
http://www.apacheref.com that also covers mod_proxy. Not in detail 
though. He calls mod_proxy apache's stepchild.

Concerning numbers I gave some in my caching with mod_proxy howto 
(http://www.zope.org/Members/rbeer/caching).

Ragnar

>Hmm.  That's been my thought on squid as well, given its ground-up design
>for caching in the first place.  My worry, though, is that with squid I lose
>support for virtual hosts on seperate boxes, because I need to support Zope,
>static content, and some legacy stuff running ColdFusion on an NT box.  My
>impression is that Squid's http accelerator mode (inverse transparent proxy,
>or whatever you want to call it) is somewhat of an afterthought compared to
>the standard proxy use case.  If it supports the ability to direct traffic
>based upon the virtual host address, then squid works - if not, I think I
>have to go the Apache route... I also wonder just how good Apache's
>mod_proxy caching is?  Any thoughts?
>
>Sean
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Shane Hathaway [mailto:shane@digicool.com]
>Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 12:59 PM
>To: zope@zope.org
>Subject: Re: [Zope] Caching/http-acceleration and proxying Zope-served
>content
>
>
>sean.upton@uniontrib.com wrote:
>>
>>  I have a question, for anyone experienced in working with Zope and caching
>>  proxies:
>>
>>  I'm setting up a load-balanced server farm that has nodes that will run
>>  Apache and proxy (via mod_proxy) to ZEO clients running ZServer.  This
>farm
>>  is routed (both ways) through a layer 4 load-balancing appliance, and all
>>  these boxes (both nodes and the balancer) are sitting inside a DMZ with
>>  private IP addresses.  The public world will access these servers via a
>>  firewall box running transparent proxy (actually, I guess, similar to
>>  squid's http_accel mode; the semantics here are a bit tricky, as it's more
>>  of a inverse trans-proxy).  Between Apache and Zope, there would be
>several
>>  virtual hosts, and I'd be using the SiteAccess product.  It gets a bit
>>  tricky in that I need to access several different virtual hosts inside the
>>  DMZ (one for the ZEO farm, and another for a dedicated CGI-based ad server
>>  on another box) via the proxy.  A more detailed (ascii art) diagram of
>what
>>  I am trying to do, is at http://209.132.8.98/server_ascii_art.txt
>>
>>  My question is this: does anybody have any thoughts on the merits of Squid
>>  (http accelerator mode) versus Apache/mod_proxy in terms of caching,
>virtual
>>  hosts, and the like when working with Zope sites?  Any big pitfalls to
>this
>>  kind of setup with Zope sites?
>
>I would prefer Squid since its only purpose in life is caching.  It
>follows the "do one thing and do it well" mantra.
>
>But whatever your choice, I hope you make use of the new CacheManagement
>feature in Zope 2.3.  It is designed to make things like this
>straightforward and easy.  There's a recent news announcement that links
>to everything you need--including complete help docs!
>
>Shane
>
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