node.js - How to disable webpage caching in ExpressJS + NodeJS?

Question

By default, my browser caches webpages of my ExpressJS app.

This is causing a problem to my login system (users not logged in can open old cached pages of logged in users).

How do I disable this caching?

EDIT:

My app.js (main file):

var express = require('express');
var http = require('http');
var path = require('path');

var store = require('./routes/store');
var app = express();

app.configure(function(){
  app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3012);
  app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
  app.set('view engine', 'jade');
  app.use(express.favicon());
  app.use(express.logger('dev'));
  app.use(express.bodyParser());
  app.use(express.methodOverride());
  app.use(express.cookieParser('your secret here'));
  app.use(express.session());
  app.use(app.router);
  app.use(require('stylus').middleware(__dirname + '/public'));
  app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
});

app.configure('development', function(){
  app.use(express.errorHandler());
});

app.get('/', store.home);
app.post('/', store.home);



app.get('/addProblem', store.addProblem);
app.post('/addProblem', store.addProblem);

app.get('/problem', store.problem);
app.post('/problem', store.problem);

app.get('/problemList', store.problemList);
app.post('/problemList', store.problemList);

app.get('/main', store.main);
app.post('/main', store.main);

app.post('/login', store.login);
app.get('/login', store.login);

app.get('/createProblem', store.createProblem);
app.post('/createProblem', store.createProblem);

app.post('/register', store.register);
app.get('/register', store.register);

app.post('/evaluate', store.evaluate);
app.get('/evaluate', store.evaluate);

app.get('/logout', store.logout);
app.post('/logout', store.logout);

http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function(){
  console.log("Express server listening on port " + app.get('port'));
});

Answer 1

nocache

Don't waste your time reinventing the wheel, use the nocache middleware.

Install it:

npm install --save nocache

Then add it to you app:

const nocache = require('nocache');

app.use(nocache());

It works in an easy way (from the doc):

This sets four headers, disabling a lot of browser caching:

• Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate
• Pragma: no-cache
• Expires: 0
• Surrogate-Control: no-store

Etag

Beware of ETags: this header isn't removed using the middleware above, because it works in a different way. It's generated at the end of the request, so you have two choices.

app.set

Disabling it using express builtin app.set('etag', false); method

on-headers

Removing the header just before it is sent to the client using the on-headers module:

const onHeaders = require('on-headers');

// install it as a middleware
app.use((req, res, next) => {
    // listen for the headers event
    onHeaders(res, () => {
        this.removeHeader('ETag');
    });
});