Web Templates and FastCGI/Proxy Cache ​

How do web templates work? ​

Every time you rebuild the user or domain, the config files of the domain are overwritten by the new templates.

This happens when:

• HestiaCP is updated.
• The admin initiates it.
• The user modifies settings.

The templates can be found in /usr/local/hestia/data/templates/web/.

cp original.tpl new.tpl
cp original.stpl new.stpl
cp original.sh new.sh

When you are done editing your template, enable it for the desired domain from the control panel.

After modifying an existing template, you need to rebuild the user configuration. This can be done using the v-rebuild-user command or the bulk operation in the web interface..

Available variables ​

How can I change settings for a specific domain ​

With the switch to PHP-FPM there are currently 2 different ways:

1. Using .user.ini in the home directory /home/user/web/domain.tld/public_html.
2. Via the PHP-FPM pool config.

Config templates for the PHP pool can be found in /usr/local/hestia/data/templates/web/php-fpm/.

Installing PHP modules ​

apt install php-package-name

For example, the following command will install php-memcached and php-redis, including the required additional packages for PHP.

apt install php-memcached php-redis

Nginx FastCGI Cache ​

FastCGI cache is an option within Nginx allowing to cache the output of FastCGI (in this case PHP). It will temporarily create a file with the contents of the output. If another user requests the same page, Nginx will check if the age of the cached file is still valid and if it is, then it will send the cached file to the user, instead of requesting it to FastCGI.

FastCGI cache works best for sites get a lot of request and where the pages don’t change that often, for example a news site. For more dynamic sites, changes might be required to the configuration or it might require totally disabling it.

Why does software package x and y not work with FastCGI cache ​

As we have over 20 different templates and we don’t use them all, we have decided to stop releasing new ones the future and hope the community helps improving the templates by submitting a Pull Request.

If you want to add support to a certain template, follow the instructions below.

How do I enable FastCGI cache for my custom template ​

Locate the block where you call fastcgi_pass:

location ~ [^/]\.php(/|$) {
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    try_files $uri =404;
    fastcgi_pass    %backend_lsnr%;
    fastcgi_index   index.php;
    include         /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
}

Add the following lines under include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;:

include %home%/%user%/conf/web/%domain%/nginx.fastcgi_cache.conf*;

if ($request_uri ~* "/path/with/exceptions/regex/whatever") {
    set $no_cache 1;
}

How can I clear the cache? ​

When FastCGI cache is enabled a Purge Nginx Cache button is added to the web domain’s Edit page. You can also use the API, or the following command:

v-purge-nginx-cache user domain.tld

Why don’t I have the option to use FastCGI cache ​

FastCGI cache is an option for Nginx mode only. If you are using Nginx + Apache2, you can select the proxy caching template and proxy cache will be enabled. It is functionally almost the same. In fact, the proxy caching will also work if you use a Docker image or a Node.js app.

To write custom caching templates, use the following naming scheme:

caching-yourname.tpl, caching-yourname.stpl and caching-yourname.sh

Does Hestia support Web socket support ​

Yes, Hestia works fine with Web sockets how ever our default templates include on default:

proxy_hide_header Upgrade

This resolved an issue with Safari from loading websites.

To allow the use of Web sockets remove this line. Other wise Web sockets will not work