Install Varnish Cache on AlmaLinux 9

Varnish is a high-performance HTTP reverse proxy cache.

Step 1 – Install Varnish

dnf install epel-release -y
dnf install -y varnish
systemctl enable --now varnish

Step 2 – Configure the backend (/etc/varnish/default.vcl)

vcl 4.1;

backend default {
    .host = "127.0.0.1";
    .port = "8080";  # Your web server listening here
    .connect_timeout = 5s;
    .first_byte_timeout = 90s;
    .between_bytes_timeout = 2s;
}

sub vcl_recv {
    # Strip cookies for static files
    if (req.url ~ "\.(css|js|png|jpg|gif|ico|woff2?)$") {
        unset req.http.cookie;
    }

    # Remove port from Host header
    set req.http.Host = regsub(req.http.Host, ":[0-9]+", "");
}

sub vcl_backend_response {
    # Cache static assets for 1 hour
    if (bereq.url ~ "\.(css|js|png|jpg|gif|ico|woff2?)$") {
        set beresp.ttl = 1h;
        set beresp.http.Cache-Control = "public, max-age=3600";
    }
}

Step 3 – Set Varnish to listen on port 80

Edit /etc/varnish/varnish.params:

VARNISH_LISTEN_PORT=80
VARNISH_BACKEND_PORT=8080
VARNISH_MEMORY=256m

Reconfigure your web server (Nginx/Apache) to listen on port 8080.

Step 4 – Reload

systemctl restart varnish 2>/dev/null || rc-service varnish restart
varnishstat