Board Optimization - [DBTech] vB Optimise 2.0.1 (Lite)

vB Optimise Lite

This is ported from my original version released for vBulletin 3.8 located here. In this release I have re-coded vB Optimise from the gound and focused stability over features.

Professional version & feature list available @ www.DragonByte-Tech.com/forum
Priority support for Lite version is handled at the Developers Website.


What does it do?

vB Optimise is intended to optimise vBulletin software by integrating several PHP "cachers" and handling data before vBulletin. This works by encountering and handling data prior to vBulletin in order to skip the arbitary execution that would be more server intensive.

Real-Life Statistics

We've teamed up with some Big Forums to show you the impact of vB Optimise, you can view this public chart which shows both our statistics and theirs:

View Public vB Optimise Resource Statistics

Features - Lite

• Supported Extensions
  • APC
  • eAccelerator
  • Memcache
  • XCache
  • WinCache
  • Filecache
• Style Cacher
  Caches style data to globally reduce a query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Template Cacher
  Caches template data to globally reduce a query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Datastore Cacher
  Forces custom datastore items from modifications (including those from vB's blogs) to use your configured Datastore Cache method instead of being forced into the database. This reduces page queries by where affected.
• vB CMS Template Caching
  (Automatic) Corrects many uncached templates within vB CMS to reduce upto 20+ queries on CMS pages (number varies based on content).
• Optimal Settings Check
  Provides a quick interface to identify possible settings which can be changed on your forum for further optimisation.
• Self-System Tester
  Provides a relatively straight-forward system check to ensure your vB Optimise installation works fully.
• Automatic Cache Flusher
  Automatically flushes cache within the Admin CP based on specific triggers to make sure content does not remain stale on your forum.
• XCache Authentification
  Supports XCache Admin Authentification by allowing you specify the username/password in a configuration if needs be.

Features - Pro

• Notices Cacher
  Caches users dismissed notices to reduce a near-global query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Showgroups Cacher
  Caches the showgroups query which becomes more intensive as your user-base grows.
• Forum Display Query Enhancement
  Enhances a stock vBulletin query within Forum Display to speed up the page.
• Forum Home WOL Cache
  Caches Forum Home "Who's Online" to remove an intensive query and allow larger sites to display this data without impact.
• vB Cache Override (Feature not available on vBulletin 3)
  Ability to override vBulletins new built-in database cacher for the CMS / Forum Sidebar Blocks to remove anything from 1 to 20+ queries based on your content.
• Full Guest Caching
  Ability to cache entire pages and serve them saving not only hundreds of queries but upto 90% of CPU processing towards Guests.
• Statistical Resource Savings
  Ability to see just exactly how many queries per day vB Optimise has saved your database. You'll be surprised at the numbers.
• Forum Resource Statistic
  Shows off vB Optimise resource saving statistics directly within forumhome statistics.
• ....and more!

Release Notes

If you've used vB Optimise before you'll be aware the previous version had phrase caching, however this caused complications with the way phrases are used within vBulletin so it has not been ported over at this time.


Available Translations
v1.6.0 French - Thanks to finereader

Change Log

[>>] Version 2.0.1
No change, just keeping in sync with vB 3.8/Pro

[>>] Version 1.6.1
Automatic Cache Flusher has additional parameters to make sure no data is stale
Resolved Bug: Potential PHP error when using eAccelerator which cannot flush within Admin CP on certain actions

[>>] Version 1.6.0
New OpCode Cacher Support: WinCache

[>>] Version 1.5.0
Resolved Bug: Style cache may have fetched ID 0 instead of correct file
Resolved Bug: Filecache permissions may not have worked
Optimisation: Re-wrote some base code to enhance operations.

[>>] Version 1.0.1
Added XCache Authentification Support
Added Filecache Support

Support

Priority support will be handled at DBTech.

FAQ

Q: I have WinCache installed, but vB Optimise tells me it's not?
A: WinCache only introduced OpCode support in version 1.1, if you're using version 1.0.x you will need to upgrade.

Q: I'm using the XCache method, flushing doesn't work?
A: If you have XCache authentification, turn the admin option on within vB Optimise Settings, then edit ./vboptimise/config.php and specify your XCache username/password. Alternatively you can disable XCache authentification within php.ini:

xcache.admin.enable_auth = Off

Q: I have eAccelerator installed, but vB Optimise tells me it's not?
A: eAccelerator does not provide the caching extension by default, you will need to recompile PHP with additional flags. For more information read eAccelerator documentation located here: http://eaccelerator.net/wiki/CompileConfiguration (Specifically look at: with-eaccelerator-shared-memory)

[Fungsten]

Originally Posted by Deceptor

Make sure you have selected a cache system too, if it's set to None then there is nothing to test

How can I find out which cache system I have? Where would I select that?

On Edit:

I see it!

[Deceptor]

Originally Posted by Fungsten

How can I find out which cache system I have? Where would I select that?

On Edit:

I see it!

Just incase anyone else is unclear, it's within Main Settings under the vB Optimise menu (within the ACP).

[TeknoSounds]

Had a duh moment the other day, I realized after I had installed everything a month ago or so ago and had been using this mod; that there were configs within vbulletin's config file that set to use xcache (or other opcode cacher) in there as well.

[Deceptor]

Yeah you can set vB to use similar systems too which I recommend you'd do, it'll cache the datastore which reduces a global query in most places

[rajubd]

Vb optimize work with fastcgi + eacelarator?
Because dso creating upload problem in my site. So i have to move back fastcgi. If eacelarator work i will remove xcache.

[Super Jinni]

Hi Deceptor,

I got some questions in mind:

• - Does XCache has its own folder to store data which is totally separated from vBulletin datastore folder? As I see, your mode works with XCache whether I enabled the datastore in the includes/config.php file or not, which is not the case with Memcached as it requires enabling the datastore in config.php file, so I thought it might has nothing to do with vBulletin datastore or the config.php file?
  
  
• - If XCache has its own folder for sorting cached data, is it OK to configure the datastore cache to use Memcahched whild your mode works with XCache? in theory, if XCache use a different folder to store cached data other than vBulleitn datasotre which is required by Memcached, and as XCache and Memcached do a quite different jobs, then performance will be much better when using both in the same time, XCache with your mode, and Memcached with vBulletin datastore, am I correct?
  
  Or
  
  
• - It is a bad idea using both, and there will be some conflicts when using both XCache and Memcached as mentioned above?
  
  
• - If XCache has its own folder for cached data, then what happens if enabled datastore in the config.php file to use XCache? Will XCache stop caching to its own folder and only caches to the datastore folder? or it will cache to both folders?
  
  
• - How to find where XCache store data in? and how can I change it if I want to? I tried to figure that out but couldn't.

Regards

[Deceptor]

@rajubd - You'd have to test, I'm not 100% sure. If it doesn't, I'd recommend using Memcache personally over APC.

@Super Jinni
1. XCache stores data in ram, not in the file system. We don't require any connection settings to XCache so it doesn't have to be filled in the config.php - however Memcached requires IP/port settings, plus you can have multiple memcached servers so we require you fill those settings within config.php for vBO to fetch and use them for connection. In either case, the datastore is not linked to vBO in anyway, vbulletin has a folder for its datastore but that is only used if you set the datastore to use file cache within config.php

2. You can use 2 systems if you want, though I'd recommend using the same so runtime doesn't require the use of using 2 extensions for cache - just the 1.

3. No conflicts using both, just might use a little extra runtime memory/processing

4. As said XCache stores data in ram

5. Only way you can change data stored in xcache is through their API functions like xcache_get() and xcache_set().

Let me know if you have any further questions

[Super Jinni]

Thanks Deceptor for your helpful answers.
The reason to use Memcached with XCache is that I've set Nginx in front of Apache for static files, and read somewhere that it's good to set Memached behind Nginx so Nginx will check Memcashed for request firs, if not found there then it will pass the request to Apache. So I set Memcashed behind Nginx, but I couldn't make it to store data, so I thought I'd use vBulletin datastore, and it seems that works so Memcashed now is cashing data while Nginx is pulling data from Memcashed if they are existed.

I'm not sure if what I'm doing the currect thing (Nginx (as font-end for static contents) + Memcashed (to cache for Nginx) + Apache (as back-end to deal with PHP) + PHP (mod_php) + XCache (with your vBO))

I'm worried about performance and server usage, so if you have any suggestions or ideas regarding what I use and how I use it, please let me know.

Thanks

[Deceptor]

Well personally If I had nginx running I'd drop apache altogether, nginx itself can work with php in FastCGI and works a lot faster than apache due to its event/async driven codebase.

Depends what apache modules you need really, but the most common things done in apache can be done with nginx - I'd do a little research on it and see what you can find

[Super Jinni]

Yeah, I thought about getting rid of Apache but I use mod_rewrite quite a lot, and I still couldn't figure out how to do the rewriting in Nginx. That's what holding me off.

I also did some researches about Nginx, Apache and PHP and found that Apache is faster than Nginx when it comes to PHP, but Nginx is light and a lot faster when it comes to static contents, so I thought why not to take advantages of both's strength.

But I do still need to do a LOT of homework to get the best results.

Thanks again, mate