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Opcode Cache

Introduction

An opcode cache is a system to cache the result of the PHP code compilation to bytecode. This allows to use the bytecode instead of compiling on every request. Different opcode cache systems are available, mostly depending on used PHP version. Currently usually OPcache is used.

Every opcode cache system has its own pitfalls, which we want to show here, so you can configure your system as good as possible and to get the message "This opcode cache should work correctly and has good performance." in your TYPO3 installer. Opcode caching systems which aren't listed here are not supported by TYPO3 CMS.

In general, PHP opcode caches can lead to a massive performance improvement of bigger PHP frameworks like TYPO3 CMS and can be seen as a must-have in professional production environments. All existing opcode cache solutions give a similar performance gain, the differences are insignificant. But the performance gain between using one and not using a opcode cache can be a factor of 3 in typical TYPO3 CMS installations. A well configured PHP environment on decent hardware usually delivers a full cached TYPO3 CMS frontend page in around 50 milliseconds or less. Enabling an opcode cache reduces this to 18ms or less! This gain is not so big for pages that are not delivered from cache, since the actual calculation time and database stuff has a bigger share than the compile time of PHP scripts. Still, opcode caches can lead to a massive performance gain and can make the website and the TYPO3 CMS backend more snappy.

General opcode cache considerations

Using opcode cache in CLI

The implementation of opcode cache system is done by using Shared Memory. This means only the same user from same process have access to it. The options apc.enable_cli or opcache.enable_cli do not give the ability to change/reset the opcode cache of the webserver. So for example package installation via CLI can lead to problems on the website as the opcode cache does not correlate to the new settings. This issue isn't easy fixable and an outstanding issue.

(!) This issue applies to CLI scheduler tasks.

(!) Using ApcBackend, WincacheBackend, XcacheBackend as caching backend in your TYPO3 CMS installation will lead to the same problem. You can't change the data from the website.

Using PHP code on an NFS share

NFS Clients normally are using a transparent cache to the server, so they don't need to gather directory or file data and content every time. This leads to the issue that the server do not see every change on the NFS Server by deployings or in caches. This issue affects not only PHP and the opcode cache, you need to have this in mind if you use such multi webserver installations. Disabling the NFS caching resolves this issue, but slows down your server systems. If you use an opcode cache on such an installation makes the issue more worse and clearing the opcode cache may not only help as the NFS Client cache may again deliver outdated file content. This tends to throw funny issues like "class already declared" on PHP file changes (eg. after deployment).

In general, it is often better to have all PHP code (typo3/, typo3conf/, typo3temp/Cache) on local file systems deployed to the single servers, than to share that on a network filesystem. While this strategy makes deployment a bit harder, it usually improves performance and reduces network load.

Also using other systems without the NFS caching issue like DRBD helps.

Opcode caches and PHP file changes

In a perfect world, opcode caches are fully transparent. That means, if PHP code is changed that is covered by an opcode cache, the opcode cache detects this change and invalidates its cache entry of the file. This works pretty well but it comes with overhead, since the opcode cache needs to check change times on files on every request. If you need maximum performance in production, disk load can be reduced by turning those checks off. If PHP files are changed then, the opcode cache must be explicitly hinted to invalidate its entries. Most opcode cache systems default to stat file changes everytime, OPcache defaults to only every 5 seconds, but this default behavior depends on your distribution.

Opcode caches and symlinked pathes/files

Especially APC before 3.1.13 have the issue to detect that a file is the same one if included with a path which includes a symlink. This may lead to the issue that it tries to include same class twice which leads to the fatal error "class already declared". Also APC tends to the issue that it doesn't clear his cache if you change a file by changing a symlink, even if the usual file change detections are turned on, and delivers old opcache data. This seems to happen frequently for double linked directories, for example if typo3/ is a link to typo3-src which themself is a link to typo3-src-6.2.4 (this strategy is often used for nice deployments since it allows to activate a full build by just changing exactly one symlink). If then typo3/index.php is requested, APC sometimes struggles to detect those link changes and throws funny issues. This issue was also reported with older versions of ZendOptimizerPlus.

Opcode caches and amount of shared memory

To fully benefit from opcode caching, it is important to give the opcode cache enough shared memory to work with. Typical base configurations give 32MB or 64MB of RAM, and that is usually not enough for a single TYPO3 CMS instance. If not enough memory is left, the opcode cache needs to throw out scripts, so those need to be compiled again if requested. All opcode caches have some diagnoses scripts to monitor the amount of used memory. It is advisable to monitor the memory usage and tune the according memory setting until it fits needs.

What do the messages mean in installer

See troubleshooting Opcode Cache messages.

OPcache

This opcode caching system comes mostly with your PHP 5.5 (or newer) installation. It is derived from Zend Optimizer+ and maintained by the PHP developers.

Never set

Do not set opcache.save_comments and opcache.load_comments to false. Some internet pages mention this speeds up the website, but the code information which will be removed with this options is needed by Extbase and Fluid and therefore for TYPO3 CMS.

Optimization

On live systems you can set the option opcache.validate_timestamps to false to gain a speedup. This prevents the cache from looking up every opcache.revalidate_freq seconds if there is a changed PHP file. If you update your system or an extension you should use the "clear opcode cache" button in the install tool to clear the complete opcode cache so the new files will be used.

Please open an issue report if you experience issues with the PhpCacheBackend and option opcache.validate_timestamps set to false.