NAME

vmod_querystring - Varnish Query-String Module

DESCRIPTION

This module is a tool for query-string filtering in Varnish Cache. It works with application/x-www-form-urlencoded strings that are commonly used on the web. Such a query-string is interpreted as a key/values store encoded with the following syntax:

key=value&other=value1&other=value2

The query-string parsing is very lenient and will tolerate malformed strings. Assuming that a legitimate client might build a malformed query-string that would be empty or include a trailing & or spurious &s in the middle, it may be a good idea not to fail such requests and instead get rid of the noise that might misguide Varnish and hurt your hit rate. Empty parameters are ignored, and parameters are considered empty when their names are empty:

next=empty&&previous=empty&=no-name-means-empty&no-value-is-fine
Once cleaned:
next=empty&previous=empty&no-value-is-fine

And since this module works with query-strings, a filter's input is assumed to be a URL. The query-string is then the part of the URL after a question mark when there's one. The rest of the URL is always left untouched by the filters. Proper encoding of the URL isn't checked and only separators (?, & and =) are considered.

For example:

/path?query-string

If it doesn't make any difference to your back-end application, you may also sort the parameters inside the query-string and remove duplicates. It will make the hashing more deterministic for Varnish, possibly improving your hit rate even more.

new xfilter = querystring.filter(BOOL sort, BOOL uniq, ENUM match)

new xfilter = querystring.filter(
   BOOL sort=0,
   BOOL uniq=0,
   ENUM {name, param} match=name
)

A filter is first set up in vcl_init and then used during transactions. The setup includes the creation of the filter to which you add criteria. During transactions, you may apply the filter to URLs (like req.url or a Location header) or extract the filtered query-string.

A filter may sort its parameters, but by default it will maintain order. The filter constructor takes an optional sort argument, you may use its name to improve readability.

Example

import querystring;
sub vcl_init {
    new qf = querystring.filter(sort = true);
    qf.add_string("_"); # a timestamp used to bypass caches
    qf.add_glob("utm_*"); # google analytics parameters
    qf.add_regex("sess[0-9]+"); # anti-CSRF token
}
sub vcl_hash {
    hash_data(qf.apply()); # implicitly on req.url
    hash_data(req.http.host);
    return (lookup);
}

It is also possible for a filter to either match parameters by name, or by themselves. By default the criteria are tested against the name only, leaving alone the contents starting at the equal sign when there's one. For that the constructor takes another optional match argument that can take either name (default) or param.

Example

sub vcl_init {
    new fr = querystring.filter(match = param);
    fr.add_regex("^lang=fr(-..)?$");
}
sub vcl_recv {
    if (fr.extract()) {
        set req.backend_hint = www_fr;
    }
}

Finally, a filter can drop consecutive duplicate parameters if the optional uniq argument. Combined with a sort, this effectively removes all the duplicates from the URL. The match argument determines how parameters are considered duplicates.

Since most of the time it is either req.url or bereq.url that is filtered, omitting the url argument for functions that take one will default to one of them depending on whether the function was called during a client or backend transaction.

VOID xfilter.add_string(STRING)

Description: Use the string argument as an exact-match criterion.

VOID xfilter.add_glob(STRING)

Description: Use the string argument as a GLOB pattern matching criterion. The underlying fnmatch function may fail, in which case the query-param is kept to avoid spurious filtering and the error is logged.

VOID xfilter.add_regex(STRING)

Description: The string argument is compiled to a regular expression that will be used as the matching criterion. If the regular expression is invalid, it will fail the vcl.load command and report the error in the varnish-cli output.

STRING xfilter.apply([STRING url], ENUM mode)

STRING xfilter.apply([STRING url], ENUM {keep, drop} mode=drop)

Description: The url argument is filtered against the filter's criteria, previously added using the add_*() methods in vcl_init. The result is a new URL with a clean (possibly sorted and de-duplicated) query-string.
Depending on the optional mode argument the matching criteria act as a black list for drop (default) or a white list for keep. In the resulting URL the query-string will either contain only the matching parameters or everything but them.
Example

set req.url = myfilter.apply(mode = drop);

STRING xfilter.extract([STRING url], ENUM mode)

STRING xfilter.extract(
      [STRING url],
      ENUM {keep, drop} mode=drop
)

Description: This method works exactly like .apply and discards all URL parts but the query-string.

STRING clean([STRING url])

Description: This is a shorthand function that works like applying a filter with no criteria. It will keep all parameters and shave off the empty ones.
Example

set req.url = querystring.clean();

STRING sort([STRING url], BOOL uniq=0)

Description: This is a shorthand function that works like applying a sorting-enabled filter with no criteria matching full parameters, not just their names. It will keep all parameters and shave off the empty ones. If the uniq argument is true duplicate parameters are also removed.
Example

set req.url = querystring.sort();

STRING remove([STRING url])

Description: This is a shorthand function that works like applying a filter with a catch-all criteria. It will return the given URL with its query-string removed. For better efficiency, it is not backed by an actual filter.
Example

set req.url = querystring.remove();

COPYRIGHT

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.