Re: [squid-users] Caching of User-Agent headers

On Tuesday 05 June 2001 08:50 pm, Ivan Philips wrote:
> When I request their URL from their site their CGI inspects the
> User-Agent header, if its IE it returns non-caching HTTP headers, if its
> netscape it returns no non-caching headers.
>
> My questions is - Do caches look at the User-Agent header from a client
> when retrieving a URL from the cache ?

Not by default.

The provider should be using a Vary header to indicate that the same URL
may produce different results based on other information. Squid does not
cache responses with Vary headers, since it can't otherwise handle them
properly, but other proxies may.

> This provider seems to believe
> that the User-Agent will be passed through the cache no matter what ?
> Does this seem right or an I on the wrong track.

[high horse]
I don't know the provider, but I must say you give them a lot of credit by
assuming they even considered a caching proxy in their design. I'd sooner
attribute the header difference to pure accident or compensation for a
browser-level quirk.

        -- Brian
Received on Tue Jun 05 2001 - 19:57:37 MDT