Platform.sh User Documentation

Using Memcached with Drupal

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Platform.sh recommends using Redis for caching with Drupal over Memcached, as Redis offers better performance when dealing with larger values as Drupal tends to produce. But Memcached is also available if desired and is fully supported.

Requirements Anchor to this heading

Add a Memcached service Anchor to this heading

1. Configure the service Anchor to this heading

To define the service, use the memcached:

.platform/services.yaml
# The name of the service container. Must be unique within a project.
<SERVICE_NAME>:
    type: memcached:<VERSION>
    disk: 256

Note that changing the name of the service replaces it with a brand new service and all existing data is lost. Back up your data before changing the service.

2. Add the relationship Anchor to this heading

To define the relationship, use the following configuration:

.platform/applications.yaml
# Relationships enable access from this app to a given service.
# The example below shows simplified configuration leveraging a default service
# (identified from the relationship name) and a default endpoint.
# See the Application reference for all options for defining relationships and endpoints.
relationships:
    <SERVICE_NAME>: 

You can define <SERVICE_NAME> as you like, so long as it’s unique between all defined services and matches in both the application and services configuration.

The example above leverages default endpoint configuration for relationships. That is, it uses default endpoints behind-the-scenes, providing a relationship (the network address a service is accessible from) that is identical to the name of that service.

Depending on your needs, instead of default endpoint configuration, you can use explicit endpoint configuration.

With the above definition, the application container now has access to the service via the relationship <RELATIONSHIP_NAME> and its corresponding PLATFORM_RELATIONSHIPS environment variable.

For PHP, enable the extension for the service:

.platform.app.yaml
# PHP extensions.
runtime:
    extensions:
        - memcached

Example configuration Anchor to this heading

Service definition Anchor to this heading

.platform/services.yaml
# The name of the service container. Must be unique within a project.
memcached:
    type: memcached:1.6

App configuration Anchor to this heading

.platform/applications.yaml
# Relationships enable access from this app to a given service.
# The example below shows simplified configuration leveraging a default service
# (identified from the relationship name) and a default endpoint.
# See the Application reference for all options for defining relationships and endpoints.
relationships:
    memcached: 

Add the Drupal module Anchor to this heading

You need to add the Memcache module to your project. If you’re using Composer to manage your Drupal site (which is recommended), run:

composer require drupal/memcache

Then commit the resulting changes to your composer.json and composer.lock files.

Configuration Anchor to this heading

The Drupal Memcache module must be configured via settings.platformsh.php.

Place the following at the end of settings.platformsh.php. Note the inline comments, as you may wish to customize it further. Also review the README.txt file that comes with the Memcache module, as it has a more information on possible configuration options. For instance, you may want to consider using Memcache for locking as well as configuring cache stampede protection.

The example below is intended as a “most common case” and has been tested with version 8.x-2.3 of the Memcache module.

<?php

// If you named your Memcached relationship something other than "memcachedcache", set that here.
$relationship_name = 'memcachedcache';

if ($platformsh->hasRelationship($relationship_name) && extension_loaded('memcached')) {
  $platformsh->registerFormatter('drupal-memcached', function($creds) {
    return sprintf("%s:%d", $creds['host'], $creds['port']);
  });

  // This is the line that tells Drupal to use Memcached as a backend.
  // Comment out just this line if you need to disable it for some reason and
  // fall back to the default database cache.
  $settings['cache']['default'] = 'cache.backend.memcache';

  $host = $platformsh->formattedCredentials($relationship_name, 'drupal-memcached');
  $settings['memcache']['servers'][$host] = 'default';

  // By default Drupal starts the cache_container on the database. The following
  // code overrides that.
  // Make sure that the $class_load->addPsr4 is pointing to the right location of
  // the Memcache module. The value below should be correct if Memcache was installed
  // using Drupal Composer.
  $memcache_exists = class_exists('Memcache', FALSE);
  $memcached_exists = class_exists('Memcached', FALSE);
  if ($memcache_exists || $memcached_exists) {
    $class_loader->addPsr4('Drupal\\memcache\\', 'modules/contrib/memcache/src');

    // If using a multisite configuration, adapt this line to include a site-unique
    // value.
    $settings['memcache']['key_prefix'] = $platformsh->environment;

    // Define custom bootstrap container definition to use Memcache for cache.container.
    $settings['bootstrap_container_definition'] = [
      'parameters' => [],
      'services' => [
        'database' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\Core\Database\Connection',
          'factory' => 'Drupal\Core\Database\Database::getConnection',
          'arguments' => ['default'],
        ],
        'settings' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\Core\Site\Settings',
          'factory' => 'Drupal\Core\Site\Settings::getInstance',
        ],
        'memcache.settings' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\memcache\MemcacheSettings',
          'arguments' => ['@settings'],
        ],
        'memcache.factory' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\memcache\Driver\MemcacheDriverFactory',
          'arguments' => ['@memcache.settings'],
        ],
        'memcache.timestamp.invalidator.bin' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\memcache\Invalidator\MemcacheTimestampInvalidator',
          # Adjust tolerance factor as appropriate when not running memcache on localhost.
          'arguments' => ['@memcache.factory', 'memcache_bin_timestamps', 0.001],
        ],
        'memcache.backend.cache.container' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\memcache\DrupalMemcacheInterface',
          'factory' => ['@memcache.factory', 'get'],
          'arguments' => ['container'],
        ],
        'lock.container' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\memcache\Lock\MemcacheLockBackend',
          'arguments' => ['container', '@memcache.backend.cache.container'],
        ],
        'cache_tags_provider.container' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\Core\Cache\DatabaseCacheTagsChecksum',
          'arguments' => ['@database'],
        ],
        'cache.container' => [
          'class' => 'Drupal\memcache\MemcacheBackend',
          'arguments' => ['container', '@memcache.backend.cache.container','@cache_tags_provider.container','@memcache.timestamp.invalidator.bin'],
        ],
      ],
    ];
  }
}

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