# Is stale-while-revalidate (RFC 5861) currently supported in nginx?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-stale-while-revalidate-rfc-5861-currently-supported-in-nginx/243632>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [December 13, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-stale-while-revalidate-rfc-5861-currently-supported-in-nginx/243632 "2015-12-13T22:32:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Sadaf\_N](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/858c86/32.png) [@Sadaf\_N](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Sadaf_N)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-stale-while-revalidate-rfc-5861-currently-supported-in-nginx/243632/1 "2015-12-13T22:32:53Z")

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There is a very old post from September, 2011 which says it is not  
supported, I am just wondering if anything has changed since then?

[http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx/2011-September/028926.html](http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx/2011-September/028926.html)

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Adrian\_DSAtri-Guira](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Adrian\_DSAtri-Guira](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Adrian_DSAtri-Guira)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-stale-while-revalidate-rfc-5861-currently-supported-in-nginx/243632/2 "2015-12-14T16:00:53Z")

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Hello!

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 01:32:12PM -0800, Adrian D’Atri-Guiran wrote:

> There is a very old post from September, 2011 which says it is not  
> supported, I am just wondering if anything has changed since then?
> 
> [Serving stale items from cache](http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx/2011-September/028926.html)

Using stale responses in nginx is controlled by the  
proxy\_cache\_use\_stale directive, which predated RFC 5861 and works  
slightly differently. See here for details:

> **[Module ngx\_http\_proxy\_module](http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_proxy_module.html#proxy_cache_use_stale)**
>
> The ngx\_http\_proxy\_module module allows passing requests to another server.

No support for Cache-Control extensions defined by RFC 5861 is  
currently implemented.

–  
Maxim D.

> **[nginx](http://nginx.org/)**