EXT: Cache cleaner¶

What does it do?¶

This extension provides a new submodule for the lowlevel cleaner tool, designed to delete obsolete records from the various TYPO3 cache tables. It can also be used to delete records from any table based on a certain age limit.

Since TYPO3 CMS 4.6, a similar feature is included in the Core as a Scheduler task (see "Compatibility" in the "Installation" chapter). As such this extension is no longer actively developed.

Credits¶

The development of this extension was sponsored by Manpower SA (Switzerland).

Questions?¶

If you have any questions about this extension, please ask them in the TYPO3 English mailing list (typo3.english), so that others can benefit from the answers.

Extension configuration¶

There's a single configuration option available.

debug : check this box to have the cache cleaner log its actions into the Developer's Log. This may be convenient for checking what the cache cleaner when it is not being run manually. Note that to actually log anything you will need a dev-logging extension, such as “devlog”.

Compatibility¶

The functionality of this extension is provided by the TYPO3 CMS Core itself since version 4.6, by the "Table garbage collection" task of the Scheduler.

The configuration of the Scheduler task uses a similar syntax. Only the "location" is different. Instead of:

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTCONF']['cachecleaner']

use:

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SC_OPTIONS']['scheduler']['tasks']['tx_scheduler_TableGarbageCollection']['options']['tables']

Running the cache cleaner¶

/usr/local/bin/php /var/www/mysite/typo3/cli_dispatch.phpsh lowlevel_cleaner tx_cachecleaner_cache -r --AUTOFIX -i --optimize --tables cache_hash

Configuring the cache cleaner¶

Before running this tool, it is necessary to configure it. The cache cleaner provides an example configuration in the configuration\_sample.php file. It is reproduced here:

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTCONF']['cachecleaner'] = array(
        'tables' => array(
               'cache_pages' => array(
                  'expireField' => 'expires'
               ),
          'cache_hash' => array(
                   'dateField' => 'tstamp',
                 'expirePeriod' => '7d'
           ),
          'sys_log' => array(
                        'dateField' => 'tstamp',
                        'expirePeriod' => '1m'
                )
        )
);

The configuration is a list of all tables that should be cleaned up. For each table, you have to define whether it has an expiry field (i.e. a field containing an already calculated expiration date) or if the cleaner has to rely on a simple date field, with an age limit.

Post-flight check¶

Just like the other lowlevel_cleaner tools, this script is meant to be run at some fixed time via a cron job, ideally when traffic on the web site is low. This will most likely happen when nobody is watching. There are several possibilities for checking what happened at a later point:

• write the command-line ouput of the lowlevel_cleaner into a log file;
• enable the debug option and check out the Developer's Log;
• check out the Log module in the TYPO3 backend. Some general information about execution of the cache cleaner is written there. This logging cannot be disabled, contrary to the debug logging.