I have an issue that my application deployment always returns response headers with:
Cache-Control: no-cache
Cache-Control: no-store
Expires:Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
Pragma:no-cache
I'm using:
Spring 3.1.2.RELEASE
Primefaces JSF 3.4.1
Spring Webflow 2.3.0.RELEASE
JBoss AS 7.0.1
I've tried nearly every solution on the application side I could find:
- Configuring the WebContentInterceptor (tried various permutations of it) Right out of the box cache-control header filter?
- Writing a custom interceptor that adds different Cache-Control header (tested with Cache-Control: private)
- Writing a customer filter that adds HTTP response parameters. Configure it with Cache-Control: private as init-params in web.xml
- Use the context.xml file (tried both in META-INF/ and WEB-INF/) to disable the Cache-Control in JBoss/Tomcat http://daveharris.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/how-to-configure-cache-control-in-tomcat/
In all of the above cases, the response headers never ended up different, always no-cache, no-store, 1970 expires, pragma: no-cache
I'm running out of ideas, does anyone know what is setting these headers in my response so I can target the appropriate deployment component to resolve this?
The root code causing this is in Spring MVC, called from the WebContentGenerator. This class is used as base class for several classes in the MVC/Webflow stack: WebContentInterceptor (MVC interceptor), AbstractController (MVC controller), AbstractHandlerMethodAdapter (MVC HandlerAdapter), AnnotationMethodHadlerAdapter (MVC HandlerAdapter), FlowHandlerAdapter (Webflow HandlerAdapter), JsfFlowHandlerAdapter (Webflow + JSF HandlerAdapter)
The CacheControl seconds setting of 0 calls the preventCaching method. So it seems the application is defaulting to a setting of 0.
org.springframework.web.servlet.support.WebContentGenerator
protected final void preventCaching(HttpServletResponse response) {
response.setHeader(HEADER_PRAGMA, "no-cache");
if (this.useExpiresHeader) {
// HTTP 1.0 header
response.setDateHeader(HEADER_EXPIRES, 1L);
}
if (this.useCacheControlHeader) {
// HTTP 1.1 header: "no-cache" is the standard value,
// "no-store" is necessary to prevent caching on FireFox.
response.setHeader(HEADER_CACHE_CONTROL, "no-cache");
if (this.useCacheControlNoStore) {
response.addHeader(HEADER_CACHE_CONTROL, "no-store");
}
}
}
I found out that since I am using JSF + Webflow, the JsfFlowHandlerAdapter is handling the server requests for the flows/views first. This is why configuring interceptors does not help because the JsfFlowHandlerAdapter has already set the Cache-Control and other HTTP Headers at this point. It turns out I had already extended the JsfFlowHandlerAdapter to handle FlowExecutionRestorationFailureException (see Sping Web Flow Preventing Back Button Use) so all I needed to do was set the configuration I wanted ala WebContentInterceptor (since the configurations belong to the base class WebContentGenerator).
Custom JsfFlowHandlerAdapter
public class MyAppFlowHandlerAdapter extends org.springframework.faces.webflow.JsfFlowHandlerAdapter {
...
}
webmvc-config.xml
<!-- Dispatches requests mapped to flows to FlowHandler implementations -->
<bean
class="com.myapp.MyAppFlowHandlerAdapter">
<property name="flowExecutor" ref="flowExecutor" />
<!-- Disable built in Cache-Control settings -->
<property name="cacheSeconds" value="-1" />
<property name="useExpiresHeader" value="false" />
<property name="useCacheControlHeader" value="false" />
<property name="useCacheControlNoStore" value="false" />
</bean>
<!-- Maps request paths to flows in the flowRegistry; e.g. a path of /hotels/booking
looks for a flow with id "hotels/booking" -->
<bean class="org.springframework.webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowHandlerMapping">
<!-- snip out unimportant -->
<property name="interceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="cacheControlInterceptor" />
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="cacheControlInterceptor"
class="com.myapp.CacheControlInterceptor">
CacheControlInterceptor (to set your own HTTP Headers. The methods that do it in WebContentGenerator are final so cannot @Override)
public class CacheControlInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter {
@Override
public boolean preHandle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Object handler) throws Exception {
//Example below: set your Cache-Control, expires, pragma headers here
response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "private");
return true;
}
}