NGINX Cache Manager for TYPO3

This TYPO3 extensions adds the required bits to use NGINX's fastcgi_cache for TYPO3 pages. It adds appropriate cache control headers, documents the required NGINX configuration and flushes the nginx cache when content changes.

Configuration

Just install the extension and the required nginx modules, no configuration in TYPO3 needed.

vendor/bin/typo3 extension:activate nginx_cache

# Fedora (RPM)
sudo dnf install nginx nginx-mod-http-perl perl-Digest-MD5 perl-File-Find

# Debian (dpkg)
sudo apt install nginx-extras libnginx-mod-http-perl libdigest-md5-file-perl

# Fedora <=32 (RPM)
sudo dnf install nginx nginx-mod-http-perl perl-Digest-MD5

Now you need to configure NGINX.

NGINX configuration

You'll need to configure NGINX to cache the output of the php fastcgi call. Therefore you need to specify a fastcgi cache path in the http {} section (it is located outside of your server {} section):

http {
    fastcgi_cache_path /var/nginx/cache/TYPO3 levels=1:2 keys_zone=TYPO3:10m inactive=24h;

    # We suggest to copy the path to /etc/nginx/perl/lib, to prevent attackers (that use
    # TYPO3 security issues) to inject a new purge.pm, and thus get access to e.g.
    # your https keys (That means on EXT:nginx_cache major update you need to check
    # for changes. Promise: We'll do that for major upgrades only).
    # So use:
    #perl_modules /etc/nginx/perl/lib;
    # ..instead of:
    perl_modules /path/to/your/webroot/typo3conf/ext/nginx_cache/Resources/Private/nginx_purge;

    perl_require purge.pm;
}

And in your php location block you need to configure the desired cache behaviour:

error_page 405 = @purge;
if ($request_method = PURGE) {
    return 405;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
    include fastcgi.conf;
    fastcgi_pass php-fpm;

    fastcgi_cache TYPO3;
    # Use the current request url as cache key
    fastcgi_cache_key $scheme://$host$request_uri;
    # Only cache GET/HEAD requests (not POST or PUT)
    fastcgi_cache_methods GET HEAD;
    # Do not deliver cached content for logged in be users, or requests with a query string
    fastcgi_cache_bypass $cookie_be_typo_user $args;
    # Consider every request non-cacheable – cachability is explicitly defined through TYPO3
    # (using X-Accel-Expires header)
    fastcgi_cache_valid 0;
    # Ignore all cache headers, besides X-Accel-Expires
    fastcgi_ignore_headers "Expires" "Cache-Control" "Vary";
}

# For debugging only
add_header X-Cache $upstream_cache_status;

location @purge {
    allow 127.0.0.1;
    allow ::1;
    # Depending on your servers setup (e.g. if your server is NATed to the public ip, or your fastcgi
    # server is running on another ip) you may also need to define the allowed purge source ip's here
    # If the cache flush (when clearing the caches in TYPO3) fails with the setting "allow 127.0.0.1",
    # you can find the reasons in the nginx error log. Open a shell and execute:
    #   tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log"
    # ..and perform a frontend cache flush. You should see errors like:
    #   access forbidden by rule, client: YY.YYY.YYY.YY, server: www.example.com, request: "PURGE / HTTP/1.1"
    # In that case add the printed ip to the list of allowed source addresses:
    #allow YY.YYY.YYY.YY;
    deny all;

    set $purge_path "/var/nginx/cache/TYPO3";
    set $purge_levels "1:2";
    set $purge_cache_key "$scheme://$host$request_uri";
    set $purge_all 0;
    if ($request_uri = /*) {
        set $purge_all 1;
    }

    perl NginxCache::Purge::handler;
}

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
}

Make sure you have the right timezone set, or the cache may invalidate too late. (Though that applies to TYPO3 Core as well). /etc/php.ini:

date.timezone = "Europe/Berlin"

Clearing the cache in CLI context

Currently, the extension does not support clearing the cache in CLI context. If you want to clear the nginx fastcgi cache (e.g. as part of a deployment process), this can be archived executing the following command:

curl -X PURGE https://www.domain.tld/*

Advantages over nc_staticfilecache

• Headers can be cached (config.additionalHeaders)
• Acceptance tests
• Performant support for starttime/endtime (as long as TYPO3 does not fail to calculate the correct cache time) (to be fair: nc_staticfilecache provides that through auto-generated .htaccess files, but only for apache, not for nginx)