Caching needed, but makes kitty sad

Server NGINX
#1

Hai peeps! =^_^=

I have a system that stores a lot of images in a database. What I’m
running is an avatar site, and there are times when it seems everyone
has decided to update their avatars all at the same time. With nearly
70% of our non-static image requests being little 32x32 icons for all
the items that can be equipped, mass amounts of icon loads sometimes
makes the site run about a second or two slower than usual.

I came to the obvious conclusion the best way to resolve this is to have
nginx cache these little item icons. Unfortunately, I have tried and
failed to make this happen. I think having nginx caching them would
greatly improve performance since it would not have to access the
back-end FastCGI servers to get the icons, they’d be local (which is
always faster, so yay). Below is the server block in question, I
apologize in advance if the regex for /avatars/ causes any negative side
effects.

    server {
            listen 80;
            server_name varusonline.com;
            root /usr/local/www/varusonline.com/;

            location / {
                    gzip on;
                    gzip_types image/png image/gif image/jpeg

text/plain text/javascript text/css;
}

            location /avatars/ {
                    rewrite

^/avatars/([-0-9]+)(|_head|_full).(png|gif|jpg)(?(.*))?$
/avatar.php?u=$1&show=$2&format=$3&$5 last;
}

            location /domains/ {
                    rewrite

^/domains/([a-z]+)/([-0-9a-z.,]+)/([-0-9a-z.]+)?(?(.*))?$
/domains.php?$1=$2&item=$3&$5 last;
}

            location /img_view/ {
                    set $img $document_uri;
                    rewrite ^/img_view/(avi|bod)-([0-9]+).png$

/img_view.php?subset=$1&img_id=$2 last;
set $droot /usr/local/www/caches/img_view/;

                    proxy_store $droot${img};

                    if (!-f $droot${img}) {
                            fastcgi_pass fcgi;
                    }

                    if (-f $droot${img}) {
                            expires max;
                    }
            }

            location ~ \.php$ {
                    fastcgi_pass fcgi;
            }
    }

Through all of this with everything I have tried, the cache folder is
still empty, which makes this little kitty sad. Is there a way to make
nginx cache images from just that one script?

Tanks, Jessica. =^_^=

Owner, Varus Online
http://varusonline.com/
Member Support: 530 383 3059

— Useful Links —
Frequently Asked Questions:
http://varusonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=461
Newbie Guide: http://varusonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7430
Useful Tips: http://varusonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6803

When taking over the world, use zombie squirrels.
Nobody will ever see it coming. >.>

#2

On Jun 12, Jessica Hawkwell wrote:

nginx cache these little item icons. Unfortunately, I have tried and

           }

/img_view.php?subset=$1&img_id=$2 last;
}
}

           location ~ \.php$ {
                   fastcgi_pass fcgi;
           }
   }

Through all of this with everything I have tried, the cache folder is still
empty, which makes this little kitty sad. Is there a way to make nginx
cache images from just that one script?

Is your php script returning the appropriate cache control headers?

#3

Arvind Jayaprakash wrote:

           server_name varusonline.com;

^/avatars/([-0-9]+)(|_head|_full).(png|gif|jpg)(?(.*))?$
set $img $document_uri;
if (-f $droot${img}) {
empty, which makes this little kitty sad. Is there a way to make nginx
cache images from just that one script?

Is your php script returning the appropriate cache control headers?

The PHP script returns a 60 second cache control header, which seems to
have no effect on nginx. I’ve got a solution in place for the item
icons (FastCGI data store). The big one now is having nginx cache the
actual avatars, which proves to be difficult.

Owner, Varus Online
http://varusonline.com/
Member Support: 530 383 3059

— Useful Links —
Frequently Asked Questions:
http://varusonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=461
Newbie Guide: http://varusonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7430
Useful Tips: http://varusonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6803

When taking over the world, use zombie squirrels.
Nobody will ever see it coming. >.>