Installing xcache for PHP5 on Debian Etch

XCache is an opcode cacher for PHP developed by the Lighttpd team. The full description directly from http://xcache.lighttpd.net/

XCache is a fast, stable PHP opcode cacher that has been tested and is now running on production servers under high load. It is tested (on linux) and supported on all of the latest PHP cvs branches such as PHP_4_3 PHP_4_4 PHP_5_0 PHP_5_1 PHP_5_2 HEAD(6.x). ThreadSafe/Windows is also supported. It overcomes a lot of problems that has been with other competing opcachers such as being able to be used with new PHP versions. See Introduction for more information.

There is no XCache package within the apt repositories for Debian Etch, however it is available within Debian SID/Testing. You will need to then download the source, compile it and install it. You can download the 1.2 stable source from the following here:

http://xcache.lighttpd.net/wiki/Release-1.2.2
http://xcache.lighttpd.net/pub/Releases/1.2.2/xcache-1.2.2.tar.gz

The second link is the full XCache source, you can use “wget”, “curl” or lynx to retrieve the archive onto your machine.

Once downloaded, extract the archive and a directory called xcache-1.2.2 should have been created and you will want to change directory into it:


[root@jager:/root/source/xcache]# tar -zxvf xcache-1.2.2.tar.gz
[root@jager:/root/source/xcache]# ls -al
total 280K
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-01-14 18:58 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 2008-01-14 18:58 ../
drwxr-xr-x 5 513 513 4096 2007-12-28 10:00 xcache-1.2.2/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 269238 2007-12-28 23:45 xcache-1.2.2.tar.gz
[root@jager:/root/source/xcache]# cd xcache-1.2.2


You will need to make sure that you have “php5-devel” installed so you can use “phpize” to create the module, a simply “apt-get install php5-dev” as root should do the trick. You may need to type “rehash” if using tcsh to be able to run “phpize”.

Now we need to prepare the module for configuration by typing the following:


[root@jager:/root/source/xcache/xcache-1.2.2]# phpize --clean && phpize
Cleaning..
Configuring for:
PHP Api Version: 20041225
Zend Module Api No: 20060613
Zend Extension Api No: 220060519


Then you will need to configure XCache before compiling, at this point you may want to run “./configure –help”. Which will provide information on the configuration options available for XCache that you can change when it compiles. If you don’t need to change anything, just run “./configure”.

If any errors were returned then you’re most likely missing some supporting packages and you will need to install them. If no errors were returned then you can simply run “make”.

Once the module has been compiled it should now reside within the “modules” directory. You can now copy to the proper PHP5 module directory:


[root@jager:/root/source/xcache/xcache-1.2.2]# cp modules/xcache.so /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs
`modules/xcache.so' -> `/usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/xcache.so'


Now that the module exists, we need to make a configuration file for it so that PHP5 will load the module and configuration. You should see a “xcache.ini” within the root folder of the extract archive. Just copy it to the correct configuration folder within /etc:


/etc/php5/apache/conf.d <- Configuration file for PHP5 as a Module in apache1.3x /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d <- Configuration file for PHP5 as a Module in apache2.x /etc/php5/cgi/conf.d <- Configuration file for PHP5 compiled as a CGI Binary /etc/php5/cli/conf.d <- Configuration file for PHP5 compiled as a Command Line Binary

For our example, I'm using the PHP5 CGI Binary:


[root@jager:/root/source/xcache/xcache-1.2.2]# cp xcache.ini /etc/php5/cgi/conf.d/.
`xcache.ini' -> `/etc/php5/cgi/conf.d/./xcache.ini'


Now make sure to edit the following configuration values within the xcache.ini file:


[xcache-common] ;; install as zend extension (recommended), normally "$extension_dir/xcache.so"
zend_extension = /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/non-debug-non-zts-xxx/xcache.so
; zend_extension_ts = /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/non-debug-zts-xxx/xcache.so
;; For windows users, replace xcache.so with php_xcache.dll
zend_extension_ts = c:/php/extensions/php_xcache.dll
;; or install as extension, make sure your extension_dir setting is correct
; extension = xcache.so
;; or win32:
; extension = php_xcache.dll


Change the "zend_extension" to just "xcache.so" and comment out "zend_extension_ts " like so:


[xcache-common] ;; install as zend extension (recommended), normally "$extension_dir/xcache.so"
extension = xcache.so
; zend_extension_ts = /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/non-debug-zts-xxx/xcache.so
;; For windows users, replace xcache.so with php_xcache.dll
;zend_extension_ts = c:/php/extensions/php_xcache.dll
;; or install as extension, make sure your extension_dir setting is correct
; extension = xcache.so
;; or win32:
; extension = php_xcache.dll


You will also need to change the following from:


; to enable : xcache.size=64M etc (any size > 0) and your system mmap allows
xcache.size = 64M
; set to cpu count (cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep -c processor)
xcache.count = 1


To something like the following:


; to enable : xcache.size=64M etc (any size > 0) and your system mmap allows
xcache.size = 64M
; set to cpu count (cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep -c processor)
xcache.count = 4


If you have a Dual Pentium4 with Hyper Threading.

Just restart apache by issuing "invoke-rc.d apache2 restart", and all should be working!

To test whether or not the extension/module was loaded and working, you can put the following code within an PHP file and pull it up in your browser and search for XCache:

And you should see the following:


This program makes use of the Zend Scripting Language Engine:
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Zend Technologies
with XCache v1.2.2, Copyright (c) 2005-2007, by mOo


Enjoy!