Disable client side caching - asp.net-mvc

Question

I've been searching for info on how to disable client side caching on project level.
I know I can add the following before an action method:
[System.Web.Mvc.OutputCache(NoStore = true, Duration = 0, VaryByParam = "*")]
I also read something about making profiles for caching, but that would also mean refering to them in several places. I would like a single setting in web.config, or maybe in IIS?
The project I'm working on contains a lot of partial views
Thank you in advance for any advice in this matter.

Answer 1

You can disable browser caching via Web.Config:
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<httpProtocol>
<customHeaders>
<add name="Cache-Control" value="no-cache, no-store" />
<add name="Pragma" value="no-cache" />
<add name="Expires" value="-1" />
</customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
Source: http://blog.jamesjones.name/2009/11/how-to-disable-browser-caching-in.html
Edit: added no-store to Cache-Control for Chrome ( http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=28035 )
You can set this at the project level or at the subdirectory level to control browser caching as desired. For example, in a primarily data-driven/dynamic site, I may set these headers at the project level, but in a /static directory (which contains my .js, .css, images), add another web.config which includes the appropriate </clear> directive, and perhaps set a far-future-expires header instead.

Answer 2

You could make BaseController and set your cache profile to it.
Then make all of your controllers to inherit from this BaseController.
Update:
Here is what I've :
// Here is my custom OutputCaheAttribute to prevent cache at all.
//Whatever you may put anything you want.
//Of course i don't use it here but i put it to show you how it's going.
[NoCache]
public class BaseController : Controller
{
protected override ViewResult View(string viewName, string masterName, object model)
{
// I do some stuffs here to change MasterPage depending on current culture.
// Don't care about it i just wanna show you why BaseController is good idea.
}
}
Then ALL my controllers inherits from this BaseController instead of normal Controller.
Hope this was helpful ;)

Answer 3

Expanding on #Tom's answer, for per file or per directory based cache busting :
<configuration>
<!-- disable cache for every file in this directory -->
<location path="dist">
<system.webServer>
<staticContent>
<clientCache cacheControlMode="DisableCache" />
</staticContent>
<httpProtocol>
<customHeaders>
<add name="Cache-Control" value="no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0, max-age=0, s-maxage=0" />
<add name="Pragma" value="no-cache" />
<add name="Expires" value="-1" />
</customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>
</system.webServer>
</location>
</configuration>

Answer 4

You can define cache profiles in web.config, however, using cache profiles doesn't seem to work with OutputCache attribute in mvc 3. Read this question: Caching ChildActions using cache profiles won't work?

Answer 5

The OutputCache attribute is used for server side output action output caching. To turn it off, you just don't apply the attribute to the action/controller. If you want to disable client side, then that is taken care of by adding a header informing the browser not to cache the result.

Answer 6

If you need to cache files in a subfolder for 1 day (24 hours), you can add a separate web.config to these sub folders (requires clearing client cache the first time).
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<staticContent>
<clientCache cacheControlMode="UseMaxAge" cacheControlMaxAge="00:24:00" />
</staticContent>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>

Answer 7

Try this
[OutputCache(NoStore = true, Duration = 0, VaryByParam = "None")]