# Changes in Varnish 7.6

For information about updating your current Varnish deployment to the new version, see Upgrading to Varnish 7.6.

A more detailed and technical account of changes in Varnish, with links to issues that have been fixed and pull requests that have been merged, may be found in the change log.

## Changes applying to most varnish-cache programs

The environment variable `VARNISH_DEFAULT_N` now provides the default “varnish name” / “workdir” as otherwise specified by he `-n` argument to `varnishd` and `varnish*` utilities except `varnishtest`.

Programs attaching to `varnishd`’s shared memory are now performing more precise status checks of the `varnishd` process. They should in particular better detect restarts of the process. This comes with signal-based liveness checks that can be disabled when `VSM_NOPID` is exported to the environment of utilities like `varnishlog`, `varnishstat` or `varnishncsa`.

## varnishd

A new `linux` jail has been added (configured via the `-j` argument) which is now the default on Linux. For now, it is almost identical to the `unix` jail with one Warning if tmpfs is not used added.

The port of a listen_endpoint given with the `-a` argument to `varnishd` can now also be a numerical port range like `80-89`, besides the existing options of port number (e.g. `80`) and service name (e.g. `http`). With a port range, Varnish will accept connections on all ports within the range.

### Backend connection queuing

A feature has been added to instruct backend tasks to queue if the backend has reached its `max_connections`. This allows tasks to wait for a connection to become available rather than immediately fail. This feature must be enabled through new global parameters or individual backend properties:

- `backend_wait_timeout` sets the amount of time a task will wait.

- `backend_wait_limit` sets the maximum number of tasks that can wait.

These parameters can also be set for individual backends using the `wait_timeout` and `wait_limit` properties.

Tasks waiting on a backend going sick (either explicitly via the `backend.set_health` command or implicitly through the probe) fail immediately.

Global VSC counters have been added under `MAIN`:

- `backend_wait` counts tasks which waited in queue for a connection.

- `backend_wait_fail` counts tasks which waited in queue but failed because `wait_timeout` was reached or the backend went sick.

### Parameters

The `backend_wait_timeout` and `backend_wait_limit` parameters have been added, see Backend connection queuing above for details.

The size of the buffer to hold panic messages is now tunable through the new `panic_buffer` parameter.

## Changes to VCL

The `wait_timeout` and `wait_limit` backend properties have been added, see Backend connection queuing above for details.

For backends using the `.via` attribute to connect through a proxy, the `connect_timeout`, `first_byte_timeout` and `between_bytes_timeout` attributes are now inherited from proxy unless explicitly given.

## varnishlog

Additional `SessError` VSL events are now generated for various HTTP/2 protocol errors. Some HTTP/2 log events have been changed from `Debug` and `Error` to `SessError`.

## varnishstat

VSC counters for waiters have been added:

- `conns` to count waits on idle connections

- `remclose` to count idle connections closed by the peer

- `timeout` to count idle connections which timed out in the waiter

- `action` to count idle connections which resulted in a read

These can be found under `WAITER.<poolname>.`.

The `MAIN.backend_wait` and `MAIN.backend_wait_fail` counters have been added, see Backend connection queuing above for details.

## varnishtest

`varnishtest` now supports the `shutdown` command corresponding to the `shutdown(2)` standard C library call.

## Changes for developers and VMOD authors

### VDP filter API changes

The Varnish Delivery Processor (VDP) filter API has been generalized to also accommodate future use for backend request bodies:

`VDP_Init()` gained a `struct busyobj *` argument for use of VDPs on the backend side, which is mutually exclusive with the existing `struct req *` argument (one of the two needs to be `NULL`). `VDP_Init()` also gained an `intmax_t *` pointer, which needs to point to the known content length of the body data or `-1` for “unknown length”. Filters can change this value.

`struct vdp_ctx` lost the `req` member, but gained `struct objcore *oc`, `struct http *hp` and `intmax_t *clen` members. The rationale here is that a VDP should be concerned mainly with transforming body data (for which `clen` is relevant) and optionally changing (from the `vdp_init_f`) the headers sent before the body data, for which `hp` is intended. Some VDPs also work directly on a `struct objcore *`, so `oc` is provided to the first VDP in the chain only.

Generic VDPs should specifically not access the request or be concerned with the object.

Yet special purpose VDPs still can take from `VRT_CTX` whatever references they need in the `vdp_init_f` and store them in their private data.

Consequent to what as been explained above, `vdp_init_f` lost its `struct objcore *` argument.

VDPs with no `vdp_bytes_f` function are now supported if the `vdp_init_f` returns a value greater than zero to signify that the filter is not to be added to the chain. This is useful to support VDPs which only need to work on headers.

### Object API changes

The `ObjWaitExtend()` Object API function gained a `statep` argument to optionally return the busy object state consistent with the current extension. A `NULL` value may be passed if the caller does not require it.

### Other changes relevant for developers

`VSS_resolver_range()` as been added to `libvarnish` to implement resolution of port ranges.

The implementation of the `transit_buffer` has now been made the responsibility of storage engines.

eof