Response caching in IIS7

1. Static compression module disable kernel caching of response if static compression is enabled for the request but the client requested uncompressed response. This makes sure only compressed response is cached in kernel.
2. You might see few changes in performance counters because URI cache module maintains additional pointers to cached files and metadata objects which saves some hashtable lookups.

1. enabled – This property tells if output caching is enabled or not for this URL. If disabled, output cache module won’t do anything in ResolveRequestCache and UpdateRequestCache stage. Setting enabled to true doesn’t ensure response caching. Some module must set user cache policy.
2. enableKernelCache – Controls if kernel caching is enabled or not for this URL. Output cache module calls IHttpResponse::DisableKernelCache if this property is set to false. Output cache module does kernel caching work in SendResponse stage if no one called DisableKernelCache in the pipeline. Setting enableKernelCache to true doesn’t ensure kernel caching of response. Some module must set the kernel cache policy.
3. maxCacheSize – Maximum size of output cache in MB. Value 0 means max cache size is calculated automatically. We use half of available physical memory or available virtual memory which ever is less.
4. maxResponseSize – Maximum size of the response in bytes that can be stored in output cache. 0 means no limit.

1. extension – E.g. “.asp”, “.htm” etc. * is used as wildcard entry. If profile for a particular extension is not found, profile for extension * will be used if present.
2. policy – can be DontCache | CacheUntilChange | CacheForTimePeriod | DisableCache (only in server). Output cache module changes IHttpCachePolicy intrinsic depending on value of this property. DontCache means that intrinsic is not set but that doesn’t prevent other modules from setting it and enable caching. In server we have added DisableCache option which makes sure that response is not cached even if some other module sets the policy telling output cache module to cache the response.
3. kernelCachePolicy – can be DontCache | CacheUntilChange | CacheForTimePeriod | DisableCache (only in server). As above, DontCache doesn’t prevent other modules from setting kernel cache policy. For static files, static file handler sets kernel cache policy which enable kernel caching of the response. In server DisableCache option makes sure that response doesn't get cached in kernel.
4. duration – duration property is only used when policy or kernelCachePolicy is set to CacheForTimePeriod.
5. location – sets cache-control response header for client caching. Cache-control response header is set depending on value of this property as following.
   Any | Downstream – public
   ServerAndClient | Client – private
   None | Server – no-cache
6. varyByHeaders – comma separated list of request headers. Multiple responses to requests having different values of these headers will be stored in the cache. You might be returning different responses based on Accept-Language or User-Agent or Accept-Encoding header. All the responses will get cached in memory.
7. varyByQueryString – comma separated query string variables. Multiple responses get cached if query string variable values are different in different requests. In server you can set varyByQueryString to "*" (star) which makes output cache module to cache a separate response if any of the query string variable value is different.

Output cache module populates the IHttpCachePolicy intrinsic in BeginRequest stage if a matching profile is found. Other modules can still change cache policy for the current request which might change user-mode or kernel mode caching behavior. Output cache caches 200 responses to GET requests only. If some module already flushed the response by the time request reaches UpdateRequestCache stage or if headers are suppressed, response is not cached in output cache module. Output cache module only caches the response if some other module hasn't already cached it indicated by IHttpCachePolicy::SetIsCached. Also caching happens only for frequently hit content. Definition of frequently hit content is controlled by frequentHitThreshold and frequentHitTimePeriod properties defined in system.webServer/serverRuntime section. Default values define frequently hit content as ones which are requested twice in 10 seconds.