How to tell if GeoWebCache REST API is working?

Question

In my web application, i wanted a service to cache updated data using geowebche. so i worked on seeding tiles automatically with GeoWebCache as in this post: custom time interval for geowebcache

then i replaced wms with gwc/service/wms in layer requesting in OpenLayers. i didn't do anything more than what's in the post. here it said i have to install the extinction but i didn't. http://docs.geoserver.org/2.0.0/user/extensions/rest/installation.html#rest-installation

Now, how can i tell if it works? do the tiles get refreshed by themselves without me refreshing the page or what?

and I use WMS to display my points on the map, is there any way to cache the layer where it doesn't need to reload points whenever i navigate on the map?

Answer 1

When a request is handled by GeoWebCache, it adds some custom headres to the response

Check the http requests with firebug to see in the headers if the following header is present in the response:

geowebcache-cache-result: HIT