c# - Cache-control: no-store, must-revalidate not sent to client browser in IIS7 + ASP.NET MVC

Question

I am trying to make sure that a certain page is never cached, and never shown when the user clicks the back button. This very highly rated answer (currently 1068 upvotes) says to use:

Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
Response.AppendHeader("Expires", "0");

However in IIS7 / ASP.NET MVC, when I send those headers then the client sees these response headers instead:

Cache-control: private, s-maxage=0 // that's not what I set them to
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: 0

What happened to the cache-control header? Does something native to IIS7 or ASP.NET overwrite it? I have checked my solution and I have no code that overwrites this header.

When I add Response.Headers.Remove("Cache-Control"); first, it makes no difference:

Response.Headers.Remove("Cache-Control");
Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
Response.AppendHeader("Expires", "0");

When I add an [OutputCache] attribute:

[OutputCache(Location = OutputCacheLocation.None)]
public ActionResult DoSomething()
{
   Response.Headers.Remove("Cache-Control");
   Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
   Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
   Response.AppendHeader("Expires", "0");

   var model = DoSomething();
   return View(model);
}

Then the client response headers change to:

Cache-control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: 0

Which is closer, but still not the headers that I want to send. Where are these headers getting overridden and how can I stop it?

EDIT: I have checked and the incorrect headers are being sent to Chrome, FF, IE and Safari, so it looks to be a server problem not a browser related problem.

Answer 1

Through trial and error, I have found that one way to set the headers correctly for IIS7 in ASP.NET MVC is:

Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
Response.Cache.AppendCacheExtension("no-store, must-revalidate");
Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
Response.AppendHeader("Expires", "0");

The first line sets Cache-control to no-cache, and the second line adds the other attributes no-store, must-revalidate.

This may not be the only way, but does provide an alternative method if the more straightforward Response.AppendHeader("Cache-control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"); fails.

Other related IIS7 cache-control questions that may be solved by this are:

• Something is forcing responses to have cache-control: private in IIS7
• IIS7: Cache Setting Not Working... why?
• IIS7 + ASP.NET MVC Client Caching Headers Not Working
• Set cache-control for aspx pages
• Cache-control: no-store, must-revalidate not sent to client browser in IIS7 + ASP.NET MVC