Memory caching

You can significantly improve your Nextcloud server performance with memory caching, where frequently-requested objects are stored in memory for faster retrieval. There are two types of caches to use: a PHP opcode cache, which is commonly called opcache, and data caching for your Web server. If you do not install and enable a local memcache you will see a warning on your Nextcloud admin page. A memcache is not required and you may safely ignore the warning if you prefer.

Note

If you enable only a distributed cache in your config.php (memcache.distributed) and not a local cache (memcache.local) you will still see the cache warning.

A PHP opcache stores compiled PHP scripts so they don’t need to be re-compiled every time they are called. PHP bundles the Zend OPcache in core since version 5.5, so you don’t need to install an opcache manually.

Data caching is supplied by the user (APCu), Memcached or Redis.

Nextcloud supports multiple memory caching backends, so you can choose the type of memcache that best fits your needs. The supported caching backends are:

APCu, APCu 4.0.6 and up required.
A local cache for systems.
Redis, PHP module 2.2.6 and up required.
For local and distributed caching as well as transactional file locking.
Memcached
For distributed caching.

Memcaches must be explicitly configured in Nextcloud by installing and enabling your desired cache, and then adding the appropriate entry to config.php (See Configuration Parameters for an overview of all possible config parameters).

You may use both a local and a distributed cache. Recommended caches are APCu and Redis. After installing and enabling your chosen memcache, verify that it is active by running PHP version and information.

Note

If you run multiple web servers and enable a distributed cache in your config.php (memcache.distributed) or a file locking provider (memcache.locking) you need to make sure that they are referring to the very same memcache server and not to localhost or a unix socket.

APCu

APCu is a data cache, and it is available in most Linux distributions. On Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora systems install php-pecl-apcu. On Debian/Ubuntu/Mint systems install php-apcu.

After restarting your Web server, add this line to your config.php file:

'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\APCu',

Refresh your Nextcloud admin page, and the cache warning should disappear.

Warning

APCu is disabled by default on CLI which could cause issues with nextcloud’s cron jobs. Please make sure you set the apc.enable_cli to 1 on your php.ini config file or append --define apc.enable_cli=1 to the cron job call.

Redis

Redis is an excellent modern memcache to use for distributed caching, and as a key-value store for Transactional File Locking because it guarantees that cached objects are available for as long as they are needed.

The Redis PHP module must be version 2.2.6+. If you are running a Linux distribution that does not package the supported versions of this module, or does not package Redis at all, see Additional Redis installation help.

On Debian/Ubuntu/Mint install redis-server and php-redis. The installer will automatically launch redis-server and configure it to launch at startup.

On CentOS and Fedora install redis and php-pecl-redis. It will not start automatically, so you must use your service manager to start redis, and to launch it at boot as a daemon.

You can verify that the Redis daemon is running with ps ax:

ps ax | grep redis
22203 ? Ssl    0:00 /usr/bin/redis-server 127.0.0.1:6379

Restart your Web server, add the appropriate entries to your config.php, and refresh your Nextcloud admin page. This example config.php configuration uses Redis for the distributed server cache:

'memcache.distributed' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
'redis' => [
     'host' => 'redis-host.example.com',
     'port' => 6379,
],

For best performance, use Redis for file locking by adding this:

'memcache.locking' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',

If you want to connect to Redis configured to listen on an Unix socket (which is recommended if Redis is running on the same system as Nextcloud) use this example config.php configuration:

'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\APCu',
'memcache.distributed' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
'redis' => [
     'host'     => '/run/redis/redis-server.sock',
     'port'     => 0,
     'dbindex'  => 0,
     'password' => 'secret',
     'timeout'  => 1.5,
],

Only “host” and “port” variables are required, the other ones are optional.

Update the redis configuration in /etc/redis/redis.conf accordingly: uncomment Unix socket options and ensure the “socket” and “port” settings match your Nextcloud configuration.

Be sure to set the right permissions on redis.sock so that your webserver can read and write to it. For this you typically have to add the webserver user to the redis group:

usermod -a -G redis www-data

And modify the unixsocketperm of the redis.conf accordingly:

unixsocketperm 770

You might need to restart apache and redis for the changes to take effect:

systemctl restart apache2
systemctl restart redis-server

Redis is very configurable; consult the Redis documentation to learn more.

Using the Redis session handler: If you are using Redis for locking and/or caching, you may also wish to use Redis for session management. Redis can be used for centralized session management across multiple Nextcloud application servers, unlike the standard files handler. If you use the Redis handler, though, you MUST ensure that session locking is enabled. As of this writing, the Redis session handler does NOT enable session locking by default, which can lead to session corruption in some Nextcloud apps that make heavy use of session writes such as Talk. In addition, even when session locking is enabled, if the application fails to acquire a lock, the Redis session handler does not currently return an error. Adding the following settings in your php.ini file will prevent session corruption when using Redis as your session handler:

redis.session.locking_enabled=1
redis.session.lock_retries=-1
redis.session.lock_wait_time=10000

More information on configuration of phpredis session handler can be found on the PhpRedis GitHub page

Connecting to Redis over TLS:

'memcache.locking' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
'memcache.distributed' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
'memcache.local' =>'\OC\Memcache\Redis' ,
'redis' => [
    'host' => 'tls://127.0.0.1',
    'port' => 6379,
    'user' => 'nextcloud',
    'password' => 'password',
    'ssl_context' => [
        'local_cert' => '/certs/redis.crt',
        'local_pk' => '/certs/redis.key',
        'cafile' => '/certs/ca.crt',
        'verify_peer_name' => false
    ]
]

Memcached

Memcached is a reliable oldtimer for shared caching on distributed servers, and performs well with Nextcloud with one exception: it is not suitable to use with Transactional File Locking because it does not store locks, and data can disappear from the cache at any time (Redis is the best memcache for this).

Note

Be sure to install the memcached PHP module, and not memcache, as in the following examples. Nextcloud supports only the memcached PHP module.

Setting up Memcached is easy. On Debian/Ubuntu/Mint install memcached and php-memcached. The installer will automatically start memcached and configure it to launch at startup.

On Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora install memcached and php-pecl-memcached. It will not start automatically, so you must use your service manager to start memcached, and to launch it at boot as a daemon.

You can verify that the Memcached daemon is running with ps ax:

ps ax | grep memcached
19563 ? Sl 0:02 /usr/bin/memcached -m 64 -p 11211 -u memcache -l
127.0.0.1

Restart your Web server, add the appropriate entries to your config.php, and refresh your Nextcloud admin page. This example uses APCu for the local cache, Memcached as the distributed memcache, and lists all the servers in the shared cache pool with their port numbers:

'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\APCu',
'memcache.distributed' => '\OC\Memcache\Memcached',
'memcached_servers' => [
     [ 'server0.example.com', 11211 ],
     [ 'server1.example.com', 11211 ],
     [ 'server2.example.com', 11211 ],
 ],

Cache Directory location

The cache directory defaults to data/$user/cache where $user is the current user. You may use the 'cache_path' directive in config.php (See Configuration Parameters) to select a different location.

Recommendations based on type of deployment

Small/Private home server

Only use APCu:

'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\APCu',

Organizations with single-server and clustered setups

Use Redis for everything except local memcache:

'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\APCu',
'memcache.distributed' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
'memcache.locking' => '\OC\Memcache\Redis',
'redis' => [
     'host' => 'redis-host.example.com',
     'port' => 6379,
],

Additional notes for Redis vs. APCu on memory caching

APCu is faster at local caching than Redis. If you have enough memory, use APCu for Memory Caching and Redis for File Locking. If you are low on memory, use Redis for both.

Additional Redis installation help

If your version of Mint or Ubuntu does not package the required version of php-redis, then try this Redis guide on Tech and Me for a complete Redis installation on Ubuntu 14.04 using PECL. These instructions are adaptable for any distro that does not package the supported version, or that does not package Redis at all, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

For PHP 7.0 and PHP 7.1 use Redis PHP module 3.1.x or later.

See https://pecl.php.net/package/redis

On Debian/Mint/Ubuntu, use apt-cache to see the available php-redis version, or the version of your installed package:

apt-cache policy php-redis

On CentOS and Fedora, the yum command shows available and installed version information:

yum search php-pecl-redis