GNU bug report logs - #37207
nginx serving files from the store returns Last-Modified = Epoch

Previous Next

Full log

Message #60 received at 37207 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>
To: Christopher Baines <mail <at> cbaines.net>
Cc: 37207 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37207: guix.gnu.org returns Last-Modified = Epoch
Date: Sun, 10 May 2020 12:11:16 +0200

Howdy!

Christopher Baines <mail <at> cbaines.net> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Since the use of the ‘static-web-site’ service, which puts web site
>> files in the store, nginx returns a ‘Last-Modified’ header that can
>> trick clients into caching things forever:
>>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> $ wget --debug -O /dev/null   https://guix.gnu.org/packages.json 2>&1 | grep Last
>> Last-Modified: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> We should tell nginx to do not emit ‘Last-Modified’, or to take the
>> state from the /srv/guix.gnu.org symlink, if possible.
>
> I ended up looking at this again in relation to Repology [1].
>
> 1: https://github.com/repology/repology-updater/issues/218#issuecomment-525905704
>
> Going back to that comment, given that the Last-Modified header (and the
> ETag) is wrong, it's probably sensible to remove them. That might even
> fix the issue with Repology fetching the packages.json file.
>
> Alternatively (or in addition), we could run a really simple Guile web
> server that just serves the packages.json file with the right
> Last-Modified value, and have NGinx proxy requests to that server. This
> would be pretty easy to setup I believe, and would allow providing a
> correct value.
>
> Thoughts?

I think it wouldn’t really help because the Last-Modified issue is
pervasive.  It shows for instance when accessing the web site: one often
has to force the browser to reload pages to get the latest version.

So I’m all for one of the solutions that were proposed earlier.

WDYT?

Ludo’.

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.