Trickster supports, via configuration, customizing the upstream request and downstream response behavior on a per-Path, per-Backend basis, by providing a paths
configuration section for each backend configuration. Here are the basic capabilities for customizing Path behavior:
- Modify client request headers prior to contacting the origin while proxying
- Modify origin response headers prior to processing the response object in Trickster and delivering to the client
- Modify the response code and body
- Limit the scope of a path by HTTP Method
- Select the HTTP Handler for the path (
proxy
,proxycache
or a published provider-specific handler) - Select which HTTP Headers, URL Parameters and other client request characteristics will be used to derive the Cache Key under which Trickster stores the object.
- Disable Metrics Reporting for the path
Paths are matchable as exact
or prefix
The default match is exact
, meaning the client's requested URL Path must be an exact match to the configured path in order to match and be handled by a given Path Config. For example a request to /foo/bar
will not match an exact
Path Config for /foo
.
A prefix
match will match any client-requested path to the Path Config with the longest prefix match. A prefix
match Path Config to /foo
will match /foo/bar
as well as /foobar
and /food
. A basic string match is used to evaluate the incoming URL path, so it is recommended to consider finishing paths with a trailing /
, like /foo/
in Path Configurations, if needed to avoid any unintentional matches.
The methods
section of a Path Config takes a string array of HTTP Methods that are routed through this Path Config. You can provide [ '*' ]
to route all methods for this path.
- Redirect a path by configuring Trickster to respond with a
302
response code and aLocation
header - Issue a blanket
401 Unauthorized
code and custom response body to all requests for a given path. - Adjust Cache Control headers in either direction
- Affix an Authorization header to requests proxied out by Trickster.
- Control which paths are cached by Trickster, and which ones are simply proxied.
You can configure paths send inbound requests through a request rewriter that can modify any aspect of the inbound request (method, url, headers, etc.), before being processed by the path route. This means, when the path route inspects the request, it will have already been modified by the rewriter. Provide a rewriter with the req_rewriter_name
config. It must map to a named/configured request rewriter (see request rewriters for more info). Note, you can also send requests through a rewriter at the backend level. If both are configured, backend-level rewriters are executed before path rewriters are.
request_rewriters:
# this example request rewriter adds an additional header to the request
# you can include as many instructions in rewriter as required
example:
instructions:
- [ header, set, Example-Header-Name, Example Value ]
backends:
default:
provider: rpc
origin_url: 'http://example.com'
paths:
root:
path: /
req_rewriter_name: example
In addition to running the request through a named rewriter, it is currently possible to make similar changes to the request with legacy path features that are described in this section. Note that these are likely to be deprecated in a future Trickster release, in favor of the more versatile named rewriters described above, which accomplish the same thing. Currently, if both a named rewriter and legacy path-based rewriting configs are defined for a given path, the named rewriter will be executed first.
You can specify request query parameters, as well as request and response headers, to be Set, Appended or Removed.
To Set a header or parameter means to insert if non-existent, or fully replace if pre-existing. To set a header, provide the header name and value you wish to set in the Path Config request_params
, request_headers
or response_headers
sections, in the format of 'Header-or-Parameter-Name' = 'Value'
.
As an example, if the client request provides a Cache-Control: no-store
header, a Path Config with a header 'set' directive for 'Cache-Control' = 'no-transform'
will replace the no-store
entirely with a no-transform
; client requests that have no Cache-Control
header that are routed through this Path will have the Trickster-configured header injected outright. The same logic applies to query parameters.
Appending a means inserting the header or parameter if it doesn't exist, or appending the configured value(s) into a pre-existing header with the given name. To indicate an append behavior (as opposed to set), prefix the header or parameter name with a '+' in the Path Config.
Example: if the client request provides a token=SomeHash
parameter and the Path Config includes the parameter '+token' = 'ProxyHash'
, the effective parameter when forwarding the request to the origin will be token=SomeHash&token=ProxyHash
.
Removing a header or parameter means to strip it from the HTTP Request or Response when present. To do so, prefix the header/parameter name with '-', for example, -Cache-control: none
. When removing headers, a value is required to be provided in order to conform to YAML specification; this value, however, is ineffectual. Note that there is currently no ability to remove a specific header value from a specific header - only the entire removal header. Consider setting the header value outright as described above, to strip any unwanted values.
Response Header injections occur as the object is received from the origin and before Trickster handles the object, meaning any caching response headers injected by Trickster will also be used by Trickster immediately to handle caching policies internally. This allows users to override cache controls from upstream systems if necessary to alter the actual caching behavior inside of Trickster. For example, InfluxDB sends down a Cache-Control: No-Cache
header, which is fine for the user's browser, but Trickster needs to ignore this header in order to accelerate InfluxDB; so the default Path Configs for InfluxDB actually removes this header.
By default, Trickster will use the HTTP Method, URL Path and any Authorization header to derive its Cache Key. In a Path Config, you may specify any additional HTTP headers and URL Parameters to be used for cache key derivation, as well as information in the Request Body.
Trickster supports the parsing of the HTTP Request body for the purpose of deriving the Cache Key for a cacheable object. Note that body parsing requires reading the entire request body into memory and parsing it before operating on the object. This will result in slightly higher resource utilization and latency, depending upon the size of the client request body.
Body parsing is supported when the request's HTTP method is POST
, PUT
or PATCH
, and the request Content-Type
is either application/x-www-form-urlencoded
, multipart/form-data
, or application/json
.
In a Path Config, provide the cache_key_form_fields
setting with a list of form field names to include when hashing the cache key.
Trickster supports parsing of the Request body as a JSON document, including documents that are multiple levels deep, using a basic pathing convention of forward slashes, to indicate the path to a field that should be included in the cache key. Take the following JSON document:
{
"requestType": "query",
"query": {
"table": "movies",
"fields": "eidr,title",
"filter": "year=1979"
}
}
To include the requestType
, table
, fields
, and filter
fields from this document when hashing the cache key, you can provide the following setting in a Path Configuration:
cache_key_form_fields = [ 'requestType', 'query/table', 'query/fields', 'query/filter' ]
backends:
default:
provider: rpc
paths:
# root path '/'. Paths must be uniquely named but the
# name is otherwise unimportant
root:
path: / # each path must be unique for the backend
methods: [ '*' ] # All HTTP methods applicable to this config
match_type: prefix # matches any path under '/'
handler: proxy # proxy only, no caching (this is the default)
# modify the query params en route to the origin; this adds authToken=secret_string
request_params:
authToken: secret string
# When a user requests a path matching this route, Trickster will
# inject these headers into the request before contacting the Origin
request_headers:
Cache-Control: No-Transform
# inject these headers into the response from the Origin
# before replying to the client
response_headers:
Expires: '-1'
images:
path: /images/
methods:
- GET
- HEAD
handler: proxycache # Trickster will cache the images directory
match_type: prefix
response_headers:
Cache-Control: max-age=2592000 # cache for 30 days
# but only cache this rotating image for 30 seconds
images_rotating:
path: /images/rotating.jpg
methods:
- GET
handler: proxycache
match_type: exact
response_headers:
Cache-Control: max-age=30
'-Expires': ''
# redirect this sunsetted feature to a discontinued message
redirect:
path: /blog
methods:
- '*'
handler: localresponse
match_type: prefix
response_code: 302
response_headers:
Location: /discontinued
# cache this API endpoint, keying on the query parameter
api:
path: /api/
methods:
- GET
- HEAD
handler: proxycache
match_type: prefix
cache_key_params:
- query
# same API endpoint, different HTTP methods to route against, which are denied
api-deny:
path: /api/
methods:
- POST
- PUT
- PATCH
- DELETE
- OPTIONS
- CONNECT
handler: localresponse
match_type: prefix
response_code: 401
response_body: this is a read-only api endpoint
# cache the query endpoint, permitting GET, HEAD, POST
api-query:
path: /api/query/
methods:
- GET
- HEAD
- POST
handler: proxycache
match_type: prefix
cache_key_params:
- query # for GET/HEAD
cache_key_form_fields:
- query # for POST
Each of the Time Series Providers supported in Trickster comes with its own custom handlers and pre-defined Path Configs that are registered with the HTTP Router when Trickster starts up.
For example, when Trickster is configured to accelerate Prometheus, pre-defined Path Configs are registered to control how requests to /api/v1/query
work differently from requests to /api/v1/query_range
. For example, the /ap1/v1/query
Path Config uses the query
and time
URL query parameters when creating the cache key, and is routed through the Object Proxy Cache; while the /api/v1/query_range
Path Config uses the query
, start
, end
and step
parameters, and is routed through the Time Series Delta Proxy Cache.
In the Trickster config file, you can add your own Path Configs to your time series backend, as well override individual settings for any of the pre-defined Path Configs, and those custom settings will be applied at startup.
To know what configs you'd like to add or modify, take a look at the Trickster source code and examine the pre-definitions for the selected Backend Provider. Each supported Provider's handlers and default Path Configs can be viewed under /pkg/backends/<provider>/routes.go
. These files are in a standard format that are quite human-readable, even for a non-coder, so don't be too intimidated. If you can understand Path Configs as YAML, you can understand them as Go code.
Examples of customizing Path Configs for Providers with Pre-Definitions:
backends:
default:
provider: prometheus
paths:
# route /api/v1/label* (including /labels/*)
# through Proxy instead of ProxyCache as pre-defined
label:
path: /api/v1/label
methods:
- GET
match_type: prefix
handler: proxy
# route fictional new /api/v1/coffee to ProxyCache
series_range:
path: /api/v1/coffee
methods:
- GET
match_type: prefix
handler: proxycache
cache_key_params:
- beans
# block /api/v1/admin/ from being reachable via Trickster
admin:
path: /api/v1/admin/
methods:
- GET
- POST
- PUT
- HEAD
- DELETE
- OPTIONS
match_type: prefix
handler: localresponse
response_code: 401
response_body: No soup for you!
no_metrics: true