News draft: varnish renamed to vinyl-cache, action required for users
Hey all, Recently, the upstream project Varnish was renamed to Vinyl Cache for legal reasons. There were some internal discussions on what to do here because this rename is very disruptive to users. This is not a drop-in replacement. Everything was renamed and Vinyl Cache doesn't have a compatibility layer with Varnish. It's a bit gnarly, honestly. Here's my draft. Lemme know what you think. --- # Breaking changes for all users of `varnish`, renamed to `vinyl-cache` The Varnish project has [renamed itself to Vinyl Cache][0]. We followed this rename with a [new `vinyl-cache` package][1]. This upgrade results in [breaking changes][2] and users are advised to study these changes and how it affects them before following the replacement. All references to "varnish" have been changed to "vinyl" in all binaries and directories. At minimum, users will have to: - rename `/etc/varnish` to `/etc/vinyl-cache` - rename `/var/lib/varnish` to `/var/lib/vinyl-cache` - fix up ownership of files inside `/var/lib/varnish` - user `varnish` becomes `vinyl` - group `varnish` becomes `vinyl` - user `varnishlog` becomes `vinyllog` - user `vcache` remains the same - disable the old `varnish.service` and `varnishncsa.service` systemd units - enable the new `vinyl-cache.service` and `vinylncsa.service` systemd units The former `varnish` package has been dropped from repos. We're not currently planning to maintain a new "varnish" package as it's a different upstream project. [0]: https://vinyl-cache.org/organization/on_vinyl_cache_and_varnish_cache.html#o... [1]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/vinyl-cache [2]: https://vinyl-cache.org/docs/9.0/whats-new/upgrading-9.0.html
On 2026-05-22 01:57:40 (+0200), Sven-Hendrik Haase wrote:
Hey all,
Recently, the upstream project Varnish was renamed to Vinyl Cache for legal reasons. There were some internal discussions on what to do here because this rename is very disruptive to users. This is not a drop-in replacement. Everything was renamed and Vinyl Cache doesn't have a compatibility layer with Varnish. It's a bit gnarly, honestly.
Here's my draft. Lemme know what you think.
---
# Breaking changes for all users of `varnish`, renamed to `vinyl-cache`
The Varnish project has [renamed itself to Vinyl Cache][0]. We followed this rename with a [new `vinyl-cache` package][1]. This upgrade results in [breaking changes][2] and users are advised to study these changes and how it affects them before following the replacement. All references to "varnish" have been changed to "vinyl" in all binaries and directories.
At minimum, users will have to:
- rename `/etc/varnish` to `/etc/vinyl-cache` - rename `/var/lib/varnish` to `/var/lib/vinyl-cache` - fix up ownership of files inside `/var/lib/varnish` - user `varnish` becomes `vinyl` - group `varnish` becomes `vinyl` - user `varnishlog` becomes `vinyllog` - user `vcache` remains the same - disable the old `varnish.service` and `varnishncsa.service` systemd units - enable the new `vinyl-cache.service` and `vinylncsa.service` systemd units
The former `varnish` package has been dropped from repos. We're not currently planning to maintain a new "varnish" package as it's a different upstream project.
[0]: https://vinyl-cache.org/organization/on_vinyl_cache_and_varnish_cache.html#o... [1]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/vinyl-cache [2]: https://vinyl-cache.org/docs/9.0/whats-new/upgrading-9.0.html
I'd only change
# Breaking changes for all users of `varnish`, which is renamed to `vinyl-cache`
and
Meanwhile, the `varnish` package has been dropped from _the_ repos.
Reads good otherwise from what I can tell (never used either.) Best, David
participants (2)
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David Runge
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Sven-Hendrik Haase