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author | Adam Niedzielski <adamsunday@gmail.com> | 2017-03-14 14:45:38 +0100 |
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committer | Adam Niedzielski <adamsunday@gmail.com> | 2017-03-14 14:45:38 +0100 |
commit | 84561349ffa7aa079f5bd371ba51bef02ee8f6df (patch) | |
tree | 7bc923313f9b9f721f5dce9d1ba0512bffcc5429 /doc/development/polling.md | |
parent | 11dfad3e3a3209532184d828c1f70e6b774ade71 (diff) | |
download | gitlab-ce-84561349ffa7aa079f5bd371ba51bef02ee8f6df.tar.gz |
Describe polling with ETag cachingsh-expand-on-definition-of-done
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diff --git a/doc/development/polling.md b/doc/development/polling.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..a086aca6697 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/development/polling.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +# Polling with ETag caching + +Polling for changes (repeatedly asking server if there are any new changes) +introduces high load on a GitLab instance, because it usually requires +executing at least a few SQL queries. This makes scaling large GitLab +instances (like GitLab.com) very difficult so we do not allow adding new +features that require polling and hit the database. + +Instead you should use polling mechanism with ETag caching in Redis. + +## How to use it + +1. Add the path of the endpoint which you want to poll to + `Gitlab::EtagCaching::Middleware`. +1. Implement cache invalidation for the path of your endpoint using + `Gitlab::EtagCaching::Store`. Whenever a resource changes you + have to invalidate the ETag for the path that depends on this + resource. +1. Check that the mechanism works: + - requests should return status code 304 + - there should be no SQL queries logged in `log/development.log` + +## How it works + +1. Whenever a resource changes we generate a random value and store it in + Redis. +1. When a client makes a request we set the `ETag` response header to the value + from Redis. +1. The client caches the response (client-side caching) and sends the ETag as + the `If-None-Modified` header with every subsequent request for the same + resource. +1. If the `If-None-Modified` header matches the current value in Redis we know + that the resource did not change so we can send 304 response immediately, + without querying the database at all. The client's browser will use the + cached response. +1. If the `If-None-Modified` header does not match the current value in Redis + we have to generate a new response, because the resource changed. + +For more information see: +- [RFC 7232](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7232) +- [ETag proposal](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/26926) |