proxy_cache_purge

This directive appeared in version 1.5.7.

Defines conditions under which the request will be considered a cache purge request. If at least one value of the string parameters is not empty and is not equal to “0” then the cache entry with a corresponding cache key is removed. The result of successful operation is indicated by returning the 204 (No Content) response.

If the cache key of a purge request ends with an asterisk (“*”), all cache entries matching the wildcard key will be removed from the cache. However, these entries will remain on the disk until they are deleted for either inactivity, or processed by the cache purger (1.7.12), or a client attempts to access them.

Example configuration:

proxy_cache_path /data/nginx/cache keys_zone=cache_zone:10m;

map $request_method $purge_method {
    PURGE   1;
    default 0;
}

server {
    ...
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://backend;
        proxy_cache cache_zone;
        proxy_cache_key $uri;
        proxy_cache_purge $purge_method;
    }
}

This functionality is available as part of our commercial subscription.