Can anyone who actually understands what the upgrade document states do a how to or a straight modification of a popular vcl, so people who don't have as much experience and pretty much just use these default vcl files?
Here's one that I and a few of my friends use routinely:
I am sure that if you ask nicely, the project members of these efforts might just give you a hand and upgrade to VCL 4.0 syntax a usable Wordpress template. Be willing to test and contribute back with whatever you can though.
Or if I currently don't have the time to do this, I have to either stop using varnish completely or not upgrade.
I get the whole needing to drop backwards compatibility thing, but without an idiot-proof way of upgrading, you're sentencing users like me, who use Varnish as a sprinkle of magic on the server.
Some examples of before/after of actual vcl files are a must in my opinion.
I'm late to this party, but the answer for you is to just not upgrade to Varnish 4.0 yet. Keep using 3.0.5, which is still available and still stable.
The "standard" VCL files for popular apps like Wordpress and Drupal will be updated eventually for Varnish 4.0 by the people who maintain them--which are typically not Varnish staff/volunteers, but people who work with those applications specifically.
When services like Varnish go through major upgrades like this, it is normal for there to be a lag between the main release, and the general availability of updated "recipes" or plugins.
First of all, kudos, Varnish is an amazing piece of kit and hat's off to you sir.
However, I've been where you are and know how you feel, what you've said makes perfect logical sense to you, in your mind these are clear instructions on what should be done, but they still mean very little to someone who's completely new to this (even though they've been using Varnish for a good while now).
I'm a WordPress dev (I know, but it pays the bills), but I have been put between a rock and a hard place, so now I'm also responsible for setting up DO droplets for standalone websites. The reason I use Varnish is simplicity: apt-get install, wget on a WordPress vcl file, change a port and we're saving ram and can serve to 6x-10x concurrent users than before on straight nginx.
Thing is, I'm not alone in this use case, I know several people, who adore the magic and ease of use of Varnish. None of us know the insides, but we're can copy-paste and change a few things.
We respect and understand the need for dropping backwards compatibility, but all believe that the upgrade docs desperately need some examples.
Your docs are great for someone who has the time to read them all and learn all about Varnish, like a book, but (with no disrespect) borderline useless to someone who's got deadlines and a ton of work and simply has no time to learn this system that he's been relying on for a while.
So I've scanned (not read, ain't nobody got time for that) everything inside of the link you gave and while very interesting and comprehensive, if I was a sysadmin on a salary, I'd sink a few days into this and become really good at it, but I'm booked up, so I just need this up and running, so again, it's useless.
It comes down to your resources: do you have the man power to create several default vcl files that people can "just use": like a vcl for a RoR app, vcl for a WordPress site, vcl for a Symfony app etc (depending on actual usage/popularity)...
I know it's a catchy and grabby title and sort of BS if you think about it, but it just works.
It took me an hour to get a DO dropplet running and blitz.io reported numbers that made me happy ($10 DO dropplet, large WP site, 27k+ requests per minute), that's enough for us.
I've got a few other ideas, but I think that if your company does something similar, you'll be able to get a much wider appeal and engage with users a lot more, which is great PR and marketing for your paid service.
Comments
Can anyone who actually understands what the upgrade document states do a how to or a straight modification of a popular vcl, so people who don't have as much experience and pretty much just use these default vcl files?
Here's one that I and a few of my friends use routinely:
https://github.com/ewanleith/Wordpress-Server-Configuration-...
Like where do I start if I want to use this thing with 4.0?
vcl_fetch needs to be renamed, will this work if I just rename it and add vcl version to the top?
You need to read the documentation on this and understand it:
https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/4.0/whats-new/index.html
Otherwise you should just be using a popular file from around the web. Take a look at the Varnish Utilities Directory:
https://www.varnish-cache.org/utilities
There you can find two of the best resources for ready to go VCL (for now Varnish 3 only):
https://github.com/slashsBin/nuCache
https://github.com/mattiasgeniar/varnish-3.0-configuration-t...
I am sure that if you ask nicely, the project members of these efforts might just give you a hand and upgrade to VCL 4.0 syntax a usable Wordpress template. Be willing to test and contribute back with whatever you can though.
Or if I currently don't have the time to do this, I have to either stop using varnish completely or not upgrade.
I get the whole needing to drop backwards compatibility thing, but without an idiot-proof way of upgrading, you're sentencing users like me, who use Varnish as a sprinkle of magic on the server.
Some examples of before/after of actual vcl files are a must in my opinion.
I'm late to this party, but the answer for you is to just not upgrade to Varnish 4.0 yet. Keep using 3.0.5, which is still available and still stable.
The "standard" VCL files for popular apps like Wordpress and Drupal will be updated eventually for Varnish 4.0 by the people who maintain them--which are typically not Varnish staff/volunteers, but people who work with those applications specifically.
When services like Varnish go through major upgrades like this, it is normal for there to be a lag between the main release, and the general availability of updated "recipes" or plugins.
We are aware that there will be some head-scratching, that's why this is a 4.0 release rather than 3.1 or 3.5.
The two big changes which will affect the VCL you link are:
Purge is now treated as a special kind of transaction, which should make life easier for everybody using it.
And the client/backend split.
vcl_fetch{} in general becomes vcl_backend_response{} whereas the stuff usually done in both vcl_pass{} and vcl_miss{} becomes vcl_backend_fetch{}
Hope this helps.
PS: And yes, I wrote Varnish, and I'm very interested in any bugs, problems, or just plain stupidities you may find.
First of all, kudos, Varnish is an amazing piece of kit and hat's off to you sir.
However, I've been where you are and know how you feel, what you've said makes perfect logical sense to you, in your mind these are clear instructions on what should be done, but they still mean very little to someone who's completely new to this (even though they've been using Varnish for a good while now).
I'm a WordPress dev (I know, but it pays the bills), but I have been put between a rock and a hard place, so now I'm also responsible for setting up DO droplets for standalone websites. The reason I use Varnish is simplicity: apt-get install, wget on a WordPress vcl file, change a port and we're saving ram and can serve to 6x-10x concurrent users than before on straight nginx.
Thing is, I'm not alone in this use case, I know several people, who adore the magic and ease of use of Varnish. None of us know the insides, but we're can copy-paste and change a few things.
We respect and understand the need for dropping backwards compatibility, but all believe that the upgrade docs desperately need some examples.
I know it's the language of the devil, but the docs and the examples are definitely very usable to complete newbies: http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php
Your docs are great for someone who has the time to read them all and learn all about Varnish, like a book, but (with no disrespect) borderline useless to someone who's got deadlines and a ton of work and simply has no time to learn this system that he's been relying on for a while.
Thanks for your honesty! We are really interested in understanding how-to create better documentation for users like you. Bear with us :-)
Maybe an updated version of the book (and its examples) [1] would help? Or do you have some other concrete examples
[1] https://www.varnish-software.com/static/book/
So I've scanned (not read, ain't nobody got time for that) everything inside of the link you gave and while very interesting and comprehensive, if I was a sysadmin on a salary, I'd sink a few days into this and become really good at it, but I'm booked up, so I just need this up and running, so again, it's useless.
It comes down to your resources: do you have the man power to create several default vcl files that people can "just use": like a vcl for a RoR app, vcl for a WordPress site, vcl for a Symfony app etc (depending on actual usage/popularity)...
I started using varnish because of this tutorial: http://ewan.im/900/10-million-hits-a-day-with-wordpress-usin...
I know it's a catchy and grabby title and sort of BS if you think about it, but it just works.
It took me an hour to get a DO dropplet running and blitz.io reported numbers that made me happy ($10 DO dropplet, large WP site, 27k+ requests per minute), that's enough for us.
I've got a few other ideas, but I think that if your company does something similar, you'll be able to get a much wider appeal and engage with users a lot more, which is great PR and marketing for your paid service.