`cache-control: max-age=0` in http request

Question

I have one question: suppose in each http request there is a cache-control: max-age=0 header, so each request will go all the way to the origin web server. Does it mean CDN is not useful anymore if all requests are like this?

Answer 1

from other post: When sent by the user agent

I believe shahkalpesh's answer applies to the user agent side. You can also look at 13.2.6 Disambiguating Multiple Responses.

If a user agent sends a request with Cache-Control: max-age=0 (aka. "end-to-end revalidation"), then each cache along the way will revalidate its cache entry (eg. with the If-Not-Modified header) all the way to the origin server. If the reply is then 304 (Not Modified), the cached entity can be used.

On the other hand, sending a request with Cache-Control: no-cache (aka. "end-to-end reload") doesn't revalidate and the server MUST NOT use a cached copy when responding.

It makes sense and match my result. when cache is not expired in chrome,it will send request to CDN,CDN will query this with if-modified-since with origin ,then serve the end user.

Answer 2

By setting the max-age to 0, you effectively expire your page in your CDN edge cache immediately. Therefore, your CDN always hit your origin and render the CDN useless as you suggested.

Noticed from your other question that you are using Akamai. If so, then you can use the Edge-Control header to override your cache-control if you don't have direct control over that value, but still want to be able to leverage CDN functionality.