Installing Varnish on CentOS 8

Varnish is a powerful and widely used web application accelerator and reverse proxy cache. It helps improve the performance and scalability of websites by caching static and dynamic content, reducing the load on backend servers, and speeding up content delivery to end users. This can lead to faster response times, improved user experience, and reduced server resource usage.

Step 1: Update System Packages

$ sudo dnf update

Step 2: Install EPEL Repository

$ sudo dnf install epel-release

Step 3: Install Varnish

$ sudo dnf install varnish

Step 4: Configure Varnish

The main configuration file for Varnish is located at /etc/varnish/default.vcl. You can customize this file to suit your needs, such as defining backend servers, caching rules, and timeouts.

Step 5: Start and Enable Varnish

$ sudo systemctl start varnish
$ sudo systemctl enable varnish

Step 6: Adjust Firewall (if applicable)

If you have a firewall enabled, such as firewalld, you may need to allow incoming connections on the Varnish port (usually 6081) to allow traffic through. Run the following command to open the port:

$ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=6081/tcp --permanent
$ sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Step 7: Verify Varnish Installation

To check if Varnish is running, you can use the following command:

$ sudo systemctl status varnish

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Varnish on CentOS 8. You can now start leveraging its caching capabilities to improve the performance of your website.