It’s time to lift the veil of secrecy on my latest project. With help from friends who diligently tested and reported bugs on this I can now present version 0.1 of WP Super Cache!
It is an extensive modification of the famous WP-Cache 2 plugin by Ricardo Galli Granada. This plugin creates static html files that are served directly by the webserver as well as the usual WP-Cache data files. It also goes one step further fixing a couple of bugs, adding some hooks and new features and making WP-Cache more flexible.
From the plugin page, here are some of the major changes and updates:
- A plugin and hooks system. A common complaint with WP Cache was that hacking was required to make it work nicely with other plugins. Now you can take advantage of the simple plugin system built in to change how or when pages are cached. Use
do_cacheaction()
andadd_cacheaction()
like you would with WordPress hooks. Plugins can add their own options to the admin page too. - Works well with WordPress MU in VHOST or non-VHOST configuration. Each blog’s cache files are identified to improve performance.
- Normal WP-Cache files are now split in two. Meta files go in their own directory making it much faster to scan and update the cache.
- Includes this WP-Cache and protected posts fix.
- Automatically disable gzip compression in WordPress instead of dying.
- As Akismet and other spam fighting tools have improved, the cache will only be invalidated if a comment is definitely not spam.
If your server is struggling to cope with the traffic your site gets this plugin could be just right for you. If your site regularly gets hit by spikes of traffic like a digging or slashdotting it’s definitely the right choice, and even for everyday use, you may very well notice your webserver is a little bit more responsive.
I contacted Ricardo last week and sent him on an earlier copy of the plugin but I haven’t heard from him yet however. I’d love to know what he thinks of my modifications!
Update! this post has been dugg, please digg it and we can really test the cache out!
Nov 6th: WP Super Cache 0.2 is out! I think all the bugs mentioned below are now fixed. I applied Tummbler’s patch (from Elliott and Reiner) that enables gzip compression of the WP-Cache data files and fixes feed content types.
Please note: PHP’s internal zlib compression must be disabled for this to work. Look in your php.ini for the zlib.output_compression
and zlib.output_compression_level
directives and comment them out by placing a “;” at the start of each line.
Check the plugin page above for the download link.
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you need to install a paged comments plug in around here… 😀
I have it, and can zip it up and send it, if you like.
Hrm. For some reason, wp-super-cache isn’t listed yet when I try to file a bug on dev.wp-plugins.org. Here’s a link to my patch:
http://dougal.gunters.org/projects/wp-cache-phase2.php.diff
How do you exactly go about using the do_cacheaction().
I’m hoping 0.3 will have a readme that’ll be kind to php newbies like me
Oh yeah, another buglet I noticed: When I go to delete a single cached file, it deletes the whole cache, instead.
Sorry about spamming with so many comments 🙂
Love it already! Options are just right as well. Thanks for the hard work, I dugg it.
Just tagged 0.3, phew.
Changes:
1. Fix feed content-type, props Dougal
2. Check the do_cacheaction() exists in wp-cache.php
3. Copy file if symlink is not found
4. Move WP Super Cache to “Site Admin” menu on WordPress MU
5. Don’t compress WP-Cache data files is PHP is already doing it
Hopefully fixed the version number on the WordPress.org page!
Has anyone else been able to successfully do a copying of wp-cache-phase1.php -> advanced-cache.php instead of symlinking? I’ve tried but it still says it’s not there (even though it is, http://catchwa.org/wp-content/advanced-cache.php exits)
Donncha, you might want to change the version number in the plug-in so people don’t get confused.
i installed wp super cache and it shows 0.1 as the version on the plugins page.
how can i be sure this is working properly? i’ve followed the directions step by step. i can see cache pages increasing, but not super cache pages.
Very nice. Will try it out soon.
I’m getting the following message on the options page:
“Install is not complete. Please delete wp-content/advanced-cache.php”
But when I delete the file, my site blows up until I restore it.
What am I doing wrong?
The super cache plugin managed to increase my load.
You should read the how it works section… Super Caches are only created when people who aren’t logged in view a page from what I can understand.
By the way I was wondering, a caveat is that someone who is if you’re logged in or write a comment, but what do you mean by this? Do you mean that you won’t use the benefits of Super Cache? Or does it mean that if you post a comment it won’t update and will appear as if it wasn’t posted until the cache expires?
sorry for the constant posting. i view the site not logged in and view the source and i see this.
in the wp-super-cache admin screen i see this.
WP-Cache
* 497 cached pages
* 44 expired pages
WP-Super-Cache
* 1219 cached pages
* 0 expired pages. (Generated 22 minutes ago. Refresh in 38 minutes.)
so obviously super cache pages are being created, but i am not seeing any of them served.
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com
can someone verify if they see the super cache pages being served?
@donnie
I was under the impression that you weren’t supposed to have WP-Super-Cache and Super-Cache active at the same time? (Step 2 of the installation instructions in the readme.txt file)
sorry, I meant WP-Super-Cache and WP-Cache active at the same time
@donnie
ugh, apologies – I’m totally off-track
as for my own problem, it seems to be fixed. Fiddling with the permissions on advanced-cache.php seems to have fixed it 🙂
Donncha, this is a fantastic plugin! I just implemented it on the WebGeek Blog and it rocks…blazing fast. Excellent work!!
Thanks, Donncha 🙂
Symlinks shouldn’t be a problem, w/ WP-Cache I took care of them by either copying the file directly or by creating a hard link to the target.
WP-Cache had some weird problem (that shouldn’t have occured) that I wasn’t able to pin down when creating the .meta files for posts so that it ended up “caching” the page each time it was viewed. It worked just fine for index pages and feeds though.
I’ll give this a shot and let you know how it goes 🙂
Looks great and I’m considering replacing WP-Cache with this on my site — http://www.finalgear.com/
We don’t have load issues or anything due to an uber box, but it’d still be nice to optimize further to keep more CPU available.
However, I have a question: The point of this plugin is to go completely static, right? I ask as I have a part of the site that’s currently dynamic and generated via a little databaseless PHP.
One more comment. Just got everything running. For the most part, it’s awesome. The only thing causing a bit of trouble is the Rejected URIs part of the config page. No matter what I enter, it still caches every page, even if they contain one of the listed strings. (I did save them so I know it’s not that.) IT creates a problem only because I have several tools pages that need to update via PHP each time it loads. Any thoughts on why that might not be working and how to fix?
Will this work on older versions of WP? I’m still using the 2.0.X flavor. 🙂
I’m having the same problem with Rejected URIs as WebGeek. It looks like everything is getting cached and super-cached whether they are in the exclusion list or not.
maybe its not updated because the version tag in wp-cache.php is not changed?
thanks for the update (0.3) 🙂
Sara – that occurred to me this morning. I’ll have it fixed shortly 🙂
Fantastic plugin Donncha. Page load time here is amazing considering front page digg. Installing on a few blogs already and is working a charm. A shiny penny for you. 🙂
good 🙂
mh.. maybe it should check if apc cache or eaccelerator is installed and use it for caching? and if both are not installed on the sys, just go ahead like usuall wp-cache/super-cache?
just a stupid idea..sorry.. and i dont know if it would improve caching using apc or eaccelerator functions..
have a nice day 🙂
nice work Donncha! how does the plugin cope with WP’s integrated object caching?
Thanks so much ! It is a truly Super plugin and has sped up Storynory no end.
how does this determine whether or not you have made a comment? is it only per post or if you make 1 comment then you get regular cache the rest of the time? i understand if you are logged in … so i used a different browser and made sure i wasn’t logged in but still get the regular cache, nothing from super cache. maybe it’s something with the .htaccess since i am not using the fancy permalinks.
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com
can anyone see the super cache pages?
RE my earlier question:
I went ahead and moved a dynamic PHP header to a JS image picker and switched the leftover PHP dynamic stuff being called via AJAX. So the page won’t be completely PHP free, but I think WP Super Cache + a little AJAX is better than WP-Cache’s silly includes.
That wouldn’t work as you’d have to load up PHP to fetch the files from the cache engine, at least from my understanding. Defeats the purpose of this plugin.
However, you can tell your cache engine to cache the “cache” folder to RAM and serve it up from there rather than your hard drive. I’ve done that on my site with WP-Cache for quite a while.
Viper: Your operating system should, in any case, cache frequently-used files itself.
Viper – I wonder if we’ll see the rise of Javascript widgets again if this plugin becomes more popular?
donnie – WordPress has a “hook” that is executed each time a comment is left. That hook clears the cached file for the post the comment was left on, and also clears the main page’s cached file too, just so widgets get a chance to refresh and fix comment counts.
I only see WP-Cached pages, no the “super cache” string in your footer. Check your wp-cache-config.php, your .htaccess and finally your cache directory!
tomás – WP’s internal caching is a whole different beast. It’s completely separate. They don’t interfere with each other at all.
Sara – using memcached to store the cache isn’t such a bad idea. I know a certain *large* WordPress site that does that, but they have dedicated 4GB memory servers for that task!
Lincoln – it should work, I hope. Give it a go!
Michael Feldstein – make sure the advanced-cache.php link points at the wp-cache-phase1.php in the wp-super-cache folder, not the wp-cache folder!
Jorge Peña – if you’re logged in or leave a comment, you’ll always see WP-Cache generated content. If you delete the WP cookies you’ll see the static content again!
Dougal – yes, must fix that. Also the list doesn’t reflect what’s stored in the super cache.
sylv3rblade – look at plugins/searchengine.php for an example plugin that uses those actions.
I installed a “paged comments” plugin but it’s annoying. I like that the newest comments are on the front page, but I’d prefer if they were in descending order. Hopefully that can be done. I need to look at the config file again.
i didn’t think i needed to edit/rename the wp-cache-config-sample.php file … i just made the settings in the admin area.
Donncha: yeah, i know they’re a whole different story. but I remember there used to be problems between WP-Cache and WP’s object cache. just as there was a bug using WP-Cache together with APC… or even with some plugins, such as Democracy.
k, the config file was completely different, so i replaced it with the new one, made the changes. still no super cache pages. i did notice one thing i think should be changed if you are not using fancy permalinks … every where it says %{HTTP_HOST}/$1index i changed to %{HTTP_HOST}/$1/index because fancy permalinks contain a trailing slash where the default doesn’t.
Donncha, any word/thoughts on the Rejected URI’s not working? Thanks!
Not knowing how to do a symlink, I copied wp-cache-phase1.php to the appropriate folder and renamed it “advanced-cache.php”. However, when I open that file, I find that it’s empty. Sorry for the dumb question, but how do I get the file to “point” to wp-cache-phase1.php?
hi Donncha,
hm.. i know.. but using a little bit eac or xcache or apc cache together in one module / plugin would be really a big deal, or not?
try this paged comment plugin, its better in my opinion..
http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/08/19/ajah-comments/
please, let us know when the new version is out.;)
Alright, just released 0.3.1 and added a changelog: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/wp-super-cache/trunk/Changelog.txt
The main change in this release is using preg_match() to match rejected uris. You must change “wp-” to “wp-.*.php” or else it’ll start matching posts and pages with “wp-” in the URL again.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/