how to combine MODx caching with Apache2 caching?

Hello,

is it possible to combine MODx caching with Apache2 caching? It seems like overkill to have MODx serve it’s own cached pages to the Apache2 webserver, when Apache2 also has it’s own cache of pages. Are there any best practices on this topic?

Olaf

The problem with depending on any external caching (Apache, php, whatever) is that it doesn’t allow for having uncached dynamic content. For example, a page that contains a self-referencing form cannot be cached at all in that case, or the POST values from the form never get processed. With MODx caching, you can cache most of the page (menus, etc) and only the dynamic part generated by the snippet is processed.

Quote from: sottwell at Aug 13, 2008, 05:10 AM

The problem with depending on any external caching (Apache, php, whatever) is that it doesn’t allow for having uncached dynamic content. For example, a page that contains a self-referencing form cannot be cached at all in that case, or the POST values from the form never get processed. With MODx caching, you can cache most of the page (menus, etc) and only the dynamic part generated by the snippet is processed.

what about using these techniques to activate or not activate the Apache caching?

http://www.web-caching.com/mnot_tutorial/how.html#WORK

Olaf

some more info:

http://www.web-caching.com/mnot_tutorial/tips.html#SCRIPT

I am thinking about this. It seems that in an ideal world MODx would automagically add some PHP headers to cached pages that enable server/proxy caching, and for non-cacheable pages does the same with different PHP headers, to stop the server/proxy from caching these pages.

Would this be a possible solution?

Olaf

after looking around some more into how other (mature) CMS systems, like Drupal, handle caching, i found some more interesting info:

http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/boost/README.txt?revision=1.2.2.1.2.5&view=markup&pathrev=DRUPAL-5
http://n0tablog.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/drupal-caching/

Concerning MODx caching, the cached file is still written as a .php file, not a static .html file. What exactly is the reason for this? This way for cached files you still need to hit the PHP engine, and also the MODx parser it seems.

I would think that the solution in the first link above would be a very nice one, because it’s done through the .htaccess file, but this would probably need static .html files instead of .php files?

Or would sending the right PHP headers from within the MODx parser when a page is cached be enough to let Apache handle the caching of the file itself?

Olaf

Quote from: olafmol at Aug 21, 2008, 05:47 AM

Concerning MODx caching, the cached file is still written as a .php file, not a static .html file. What exactly is the reason for this? This way for cached files you still need to hit the PHP engine, and also the MODx parser it seems.

I would think that the solution in the first link above would be a very nice one, because it’s done through the .htaccess file, but this would probably need static .html files instead of .php files?

MODx caches to PHP files in order to support non-cacheable tags. Caching in MODx is split into two major parts, the siteCache and the partial page caches. The siteCache keeps a registry of all the documents and all the source for your elements (i.e. chunks, snippets, plugins) while each partial page cache puts all of your cacheable content into a php document that is simply included on cached requests (instead of database queries). Someone wrote a static html file caching solution using a plugin some time ago called htcache that provided a way to cache static html files from MODx and serve them using mod_rewrite. You might look into this solution as it was a good approach.

Quote from: OpenGeek at Aug 21, 2008, 10:58 AM

Quote from: olafmol at Aug 21, 2008, 05:47 AM

Concerning MODx caching, the cached file is still written as a .php file, not a static .html file. What exactly is the reason for this? This way for cached files you still need to hit the PHP engine, and also the MODx parser it seems.

I would think that the solution in the first link above would be a very nice one, because it’s done through the .htaccess file, but this would probably need static .html files instead of .php files?

MODx caches to PHP files in order to support non-cacheable tags. Caching in MODx is split into two major parts, the siteCache and the partial page caches. The siteCache keeps a registry of all the documents and all the source for your elements (i.e. chunks, snippets, plugins) while each partial page cache puts all of your cacheable content into a php document that is simply included on cached requests (instead of database queries). Someone wrote a static html file caching solution using a plugin some time ago called htcache that provided a way to cache static html files from MODx and serve them using mod_rewrite. You might look into this solution as it was a good approach.

cheers!