XF 1.5 Migrating to php70w. Question about xf and opcode70w

[Nicky Vermeersch]

I'm going to convert my forums soon from an installation on Centos 6, php 5.2 and apc to Centos 7 php7 and its new opcode cache system that is native since 5.5.

However looking at the manual for https://xenforo.com/help/cache/ I only find a paragraph about APC. Does this mean that xenforo won't need additional configuration in order to repeat benefits from using the php opcode cache? Or does it still need configuring somehow? I know that you can't run opcodecache and apc alongside each other, but this is rather new and unclear to me on how I would make it work.

 

[Mike]

APC does data and opcode caching; opcache only caches opcodes so there's no application-level configuration needed. If you're really wanting to do extra caching, I would consider something like Memcache instead.

 

[Nicky Vermeersch]

Thanks @Mike would you think that the benefits of using opcode caching are greater than using file caching? This is basically for a handful of websites, which combined, don't get over 9k visitors a day.

 

[Mike]

Well APC does opcode caching and that's almost all that you need, specifically for smaller sites. I would suggest that the benefits of a more recent version of PHP (even 5.6) would far outweigh any benefit from APC data caching.

In general, I wouldn't recommend file-based caching.

 

[Xon]

In general, I wouldn't recommend file-based caching.

It is a great way to consume all your disk space!

 

[Nuno]

If you're really wanting to do extra caching, I would consider something like Memcache instead.

Mike, do you suggest Memcache even in single server environment?
Would APC be faster?

Thanks

 

[Mike]

I really don't suggest APC in general. It's problematic with PHP 5.4 and newer and it doesn't really use an "expected" cache eviction system by default.

 

[rainmotorsports]

I really don't suggest APC in general. It's problematic with PHP 5.4 and newer and it doesn't really use an "expected" cache eviction system by default.

This. If you use APC with PHP 5.4 through 5.6 pretty much any operation that triggers an immediate email will cause the user to get no returned page. Which really confuses people trying to do password resets etc.

 

[Nuno]

I really don't suggest APC in general. It's problematic with PHP 5.4 and newer and it doesn't really use an "expected" cache eviction system by default.

Will we see performance improvements switching from APCu to Memcache?

 

[Mike]

Probably not, but I doubt you'd see much (if any) performance difference disabling the extra caching layer entirely.