Varnish Cache empties cart in Magento - magento

Question

We are running a Amazon Web Service EC2 Magento instance with RDS and Varnish Cache and nginx. We are currently facing the problem, that the cart is empty when a user tries to add a second item to the cart. The session is dropped because a new Cookie is set. Here you'll find our .vcl file
# default backend definition. Set this to point to your content server.
backend default {
.host = "127.0.0.1";
.port = "8080";
}
# admin backend with longer timeout values. Set this to the same IP & port as your default server.
backend admin {
.host = "127.0.0.1";
.port = "8080";
.first_byte_timeout = 18000s;
.between_bytes_timeout = 18000s;
}
# add your Magento server IP to allow purges from the backend
acl purge {
"localhost";
"127.0.0.1";
}
sub vcl_recv {
if (req.restarts == 0) {
if (req.http.x-forwarded-for) {
set req.http.X-Forwarded-For =
req.http.X-Forwarded-For + ", " + client.ip;
} else {
set req.http.X-Forwarded-For = client.ip;
}
}
if (req.request != "GET" &&
req.request != "HEAD" &&
req.request != "PUT" &&
req.request != "POST" &&
req.request != "TRACE" &&
req.request != "OPTIONS" &&
req.request != "DELETE" &&
req.request != "PURGE") {
/* Non-RFC2616 or CONNECT which is weird. */
return (pipe);
}
# purge request
if (req.request == "PURGE") {
if (!client.ip ~ purge) {
error 405 "Not allowed.";
}
ban("obj.http.X-Purge-Host ~ " + req.http.X-Purge-Host + " && obj.http.X-Purge-URL ~ " + req.http.X-Purge-Regex + " && obj.http.Content-Type ~ " + req.http.X-Purge-Content-Type);
error 200 "Purged.";
}
# switch to admin backend configuration
if (req.http.cookie ~ "adminhtml=") {
set req.backend = admin;
}
# we only deal with GET and HEAD by default
if (req.request != "GET" && req.request != "HEAD") {
return (pass);
}
# normalize url in case of leading HTTP scheme and domain
set req.url = regsub(req.url, "^http[s]?://[^/]+", "");
# static files are always cacheable. remove SSL flag and cookie
if (req.url ~ "^/(media|js|skin)/.*\.(png|jpg|jpeg|gif|css|js|swf|ico)$") {
unset req.http.Https;
unset req.http.Cookie;
}
# not cacheable by default
if (req.http.Authorization || req.http.Https) {
return (pass);
}
# do not cache any page from
# - index files
# - ...
if (req.url ~ "^/(index)") {
return (pass);
}
# checkout should not be cached by varnish
if (req.url ~ "/(checkout|customer|catalog/product_compare|wishlist)/") {
return(pass);
}
# if (req.url ~ "^/(index.php/)?(checkout|onepagecheckout)")
# {
# return(pipe);
# }
# as soon as we have a NO_CACHE cookie pass request
if (req.http.cookie ~ "NO_CACHE=") {
return (pass);
}
# normalize Aceept-Encoding header
# http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/wiki/FAQ/Compression
if (req.http.Accept-Encoding) {
if (req.url ~ "\.(jpg|png|gif|gz|tgz|bz2|tbz|mp3|ogg|swf|flv)$") {
# No point in compressing these
remove req.http.Accept-Encoding;
} elsif (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "gzip") {
set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "gzip";
} elsif (req.http.Accept-Encoding ~ "deflate" && req.http.user-agent !~ "MSIE") {
set req.http.Accept-Encoding = "deflate";
} else {
# unkown algorithm
remove req.http.Accept-Encoding;
}
}
# remove Google gclid parameters
set req.url = regsuball(req.url,"\?gclid=[^&]+$",""); # strips when QS = "?gclid=AAA"
set req.url = regsuball(req.url,"\?gclid=[^&]+&","?"); # strips when QS = "?gclid=AAA&foo=bar"
set req.url = regsuball(req.url,"&gclid=[^&]+",""); # strips when QS = "?foo=bar&gclid=AAA" or QS = "?foo=bar&gclid=AAA&bar=baz"
return (lookup);
}
# sub vcl_pipe {
# # Note that only the first request to the backend will have
# # X-Forwarded-For set. If you use X-Forwarded-For and want to
# # have it set for all requests, make sure to have:
# # set bereq.http.connection = "close";
# # here. It is not set by default as it might break some broken web
# # applications, like IIS with NTLM authentication.
# return (pipe);
# }
#
# sub vcl_pass {
# return (pass);
# }
#
sub vcl_hash {
hash_data(req.url);
if (req.http.host) {
hash_data(req.http.host);
} else {
hash_data(server.ip);
}
if (!(req.url ~ "^/(media|js|skin)/.*\.(png|jpg|jpeg|gif|css|js|swf|ico)$")) {
call design_exception;
}
return (hash);
}
#
# sub vcl_hit {
# return (deliver);
# }
#
# sub vcl_miss {
# return (fetch);
# }
sub vcl_fetch {
if (beresp.status == 500) {
set beresp.saintmode = 10s;
return (restart);
}
set beresp.grace = 5m;
# add ban-lurker tags to object
set beresp.http.X-Purge-URL = req.url;
set beresp.http.X-Purge-Host = req.http.host;
if (beresp.status == 200 || beresp.status == 301 || beresp.status == 404) {
if (beresp.http.Content-Type ~ "text/html" || beresp.http.Content-Type ~ "text/xml") {
if ((beresp.http.Set-Cookie ~ "NO_CACHE=") || (beresp.ttl < 1s)) {
set beresp.ttl = 0s;
return (hit_for_pass);
}
# marker for vcl_deliver to reset Age:
set beresp.http.magicmarker = "1";
# Don't cache cookies
unset beresp.http.set-cookie;
} else {
# set default TTL value for static content
set beresp.ttl = 30d;
}
return (deliver);
}
return (hit_for_pass);
}
sub vcl_deliver {
# debug info
if (resp.http.X-Cache-Debug) {
if (obj.hits > 0) {
set resp.http.X-Cache = "HIT";
set resp.http.X-Cache-Hits = obj.hits;
} else {
set resp.http.X-Cache = "MISS";
}
set resp.http.X-Cache-Expires = resp.http.Expires;
} else {
# remove Varnish/proxy header
remove resp.http.X-Varnish;
remove resp.http.Via;
remove resp.http.Age;
remove resp.http.X-Purge-URL;
remove resp.http.X-Purge-Host;
}
if (resp.http.magicmarker) {
# Remove the magic marker
unset resp.http.magicmarker;
set resp.http.Cache-Control = "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0";
set resp.http.Pragma = "no-cache";
set resp.http.Expires = "Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:00:00 GMT";
set resp.http.Age = "0";
}
}
# sub vcl_error {
# set obj.http.Content-Type = "text/html; charset=utf-8";
# set obj.http.Retry-After = "5";
# synthetic {"
# <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
# <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
# "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
# <html>
# <head>
# <title>"} + obj.status + " " + obj.response + {"</title>
# </head>
# <body>
# <h1>Error "} + obj.status + " " + obj.response + {"</h1>
# <p>"} + obj.response + {"</p>
# <h3>Guru Meditation:</h3>
# <p>XID: "} + req.xid + {"</p>
# <hr>
# <p>Varnish cache server</p>
# </body>
# </html>
# "};
# return (deliver);
# }
#
# sub vcl_init {
# return (ok);
# }
#
# sub vcl_fini {
# return (ok);
# }
sub design_exception {
}
Are we doing something basically wrong? or are we searching the wrong spot?
Many thanks for your help.
cheers,
Wolfgang

Answer 1

Your posted .vcl looks fine but however:
1) Make sure you have the official Pagecache powered by Varnish Magento module installed.
2) In the backend, under System => Configuration => System there is a whole tab dedicated to Varnish, make sure all settings are filled in correctly.
3) Verify that after adding a product to the cart there is a "NO_CACHE" or "EXTERNAL_NO_CACHE" cookie set
4) Everything should work?