Memcached is an open-source, high-performance, superfast in-memory key-value store and caching service. It is used to speed up web applications by caching session data, user authentication tokens, and API calls. It also helps when sharing a large amount of data across multiple application instances. It is used by some major companies including Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter. Memcached is multithreaded and scales vertically.
In this post, we will show you how to install Memcached on Rocky Linux 8.
Step 1 – Install Memcached on Rocky Linux 8
By default, the Memcached package is included in the Rocky Linux 8 default repo. You can install it by just running the following command:
dnf install memcached libmemcached -y
Once the Memcached is installed, you can see the detailed information of Memcached with the following command:
rpm -qi memcached
Sample output:
Name : memcached Epoch : 0 Version : 1.5.22 Release : 2.el8 Architecture: x86_64 Install Date: Friday 29 October 2021 01:44:50 PM UTC Group : System Environment/Daemons Size : 414743 License : BSD Signature : RSA/SHA256, Monday 12 April 2021 07:04:12 AM UTC, Key ID 15af5dac6d745a60 Source RPM : memcached-1.5.22-2.el8.src.rpm Build Date : Monday 12 April 2021 04:45:42 AM UTC Build Host : ord1-prod-x86build003.svc.aws.rockylinux.org Relocations : (not relocatable) Packager : [email protected] Vendor : Rocky URL : https://www.memcached.org/ Summary : High Performance, Distributed Memory Object Cache Description : memcached is a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load.
Step 2 – Manage Memcached Service
You can manage the Memcached service easily via systemd. To start the Memcached service, run the following command:
systemctl start memcached
To enable the Memcached service to start after the reboot, run the following command:
systemctl enable memcached
To check the status of the Memcached service, run the following command:
systemctl status memcached
Sample output:
● memcached.service - memcached daemon
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/memcached.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Fri 2021-10-29 13:45:33 UTC; 4s ago
Main PID: 10526 (memcached)
Tasks: 10 (limit: 11411)
Memory: 3.6M
CGroup: /system.slice/memcached.service
└─10526 /usr/bin/memcached -p 11211 -u memcached -m 64 -c 1024 -l 127.0.0.1,::1
Oct 29 13:45:33 RockyLinux8 systemd[1]: Started memcached daemon.
Step 3 – Configure Memcached
The Memcached default configuration file is located at /etc/sysconfig/memcached. You can edit it with the following command:
nano /etc/sysconfig/memcached
The default configuration is shown below. You can change it per your requirements:
PORT="11211" USER="memcached" MAXCONN="1024" CACHESIZE="64" OPTIONS="-l 127.0.0.1,::1"
Save and close the file then restart the Memcached service to apply the changes:
systemctl restart memcached
Step 4 – Integrate Memcached with PHP-Based Applications
You can use Memcached as a caching service for all PHP based applications. You can do it by installing the Memcached extension for PHP.
First, install the EPEL and Remi repository with the following command:
dnf install epel-release -y dnf install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm -y
Next, disable the default PHP repo and enable the Remi PHP repo with the following command:
dnf module list reset php dnf module enable php:remi-7.4 -y
Next, install the Memcached PHP extensions using the following command:
dnf install php-pecl-memcache php-pecl-memcached -y
Step 5 – Verify Memcached for PHP
To verify the Memcached integration with PHP, you will need to install the Nginx web server and PHP package to your server.
dnf install nginx php php-cli -y
Next, create a info.php file with the following command:
nano /var/www/html/info.php
Add the following code:
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
Save and close the file, then create a symbolic link to the info.php file in the Nginx default web root directory:
ln -s /var/www/html/info.php /usr/share/nginx/html/
Next, restart the Nginx service to apply the changes:
systemctl start nginx
Now, open your web browser and type the URL http://your-server-ip/info.php. You should see the following page:
As you can see, both Memcache and Memcached PHP extensions are enabled.
Conclusion
In the above post, you learned how to install the Memcached service on Rocky Linux 8. You also learned how to integrate Memcached with PHP applications. You should now be able to use Memcached to speed up your web applications – give it a try on VPS hosting from Atlantic.Net!
