Varnish on Windows (using Cygwin)

This post details how to run Varnish on Windows (using Cygwin) .

Install Varnish and Cygwin on Windows

To install Varnish and Cygwin on Windows, refer to download and installation instructions at:

https://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/wiki/VarnishOnCygwinWindows#InstallFullCygwinenvironmentwithvarnishpackage

Configure default.vcl file

• Take a copy of default.vcl file located at {cygwin_install}/etc/varnish
• Now open default.vcl and configure backend default

I am giving port 3000 because it is the default port for node.js

backend default {

     .host = "127.0.0.1";

     .port = "3000";

 }

Start up Varnish

On cygwin window, type following command to startup varnish

$ /usr/sbin/varnishd -d -f ./etc/varnish/default.vcl -a 127.0.0.1:6081

This will start up Varnish in debug mode, so that you can monitor it.

Once started, list the processes

$ ps -ef | grep varnish

you should see varnish process started.

Issues with Varnish on Cygwin and solution:

Panic message: Assert error in sock_test(), /usr/src/varnish-3.0.5-1/src/varnish-3.0.5/bin/varnishd/cache_acceptor.c line 166:

  Condition(l == sizeof tcp_nodelay) not true.

Solution:
You will need to download the varnish src (varnish-3.0.5-1-src.tar.xz) and remove the assert statement at varnish-3.0.5/bin/varnishd/cache_acceptor.c line 166

Then recompile and install:

• cygport varnish-{version}.cygport prep
• cygport varnish-{version}.cygport compile
• cygport varnish-{version}.cygport install

More details for compile at - http://sourceforge.net/projects/cygvarnish/files/cygport-packages/64%20bits%20%28x86_64%29/