Chamilo 1.8.7.1 : Optimization Guide

Documentation > Optimization Guide

In seldom cases, you will need to start looking into efficiency issues with Chamilo. This guide is a work in progress intended to help administrators optimize their Chamilo installtion.

Contents

  1. Using xCache
  2. Slow queries
  3. Indexes caching
  4. Sessions directories
  5. Users upload directories

1. Using xCache

See xCache's website for summary documentation.
Set your xcache.ini configuration (/etc/php5/conf.d/xcache.ini) to match your system. For example, you *could* have something like this (intentionally hiding comments here):
xcache.shm_scheme =        "mmap"
xcache.size  =                32M
xcache.count =                 2
xcache.slots =                8K
xcache.ttl   =                 0
xcache.gc_interval =           0
xcache.var_size  =           16M
xcache.var_count =            16
xcache.var_slots =            8K
xcache.var_ttl   =            60
xcache.var_maxttl   =        300
xcache.var_gc_interval =     300
xcache.test =                Off
xCache will feel useless until you actually start to put some variables in cache. If you're showing the "Who is online" counter, that's one of the best item there is to implement xCache.
For example, you could implement it this way (in main/inc/banner.inc.php):
$xc = function_exists('xcache_isset');
$number = 0;
if ($xc && xcache_isset('campus_chamilo_org_whoisonline_count_simple')) {
  $number = xcache_get('campus_chamilo_org_whoisonline_count_simple');
} else {
  $number = who_is_online_count(api_get_setting('time_limit_whosonline'));
  xcache_set('campus_chamilo_org_whoisonline_count_simple',$number);
}
$number_online_in_course = 0;
if(!empty($_course['id'])) {
  if ($xc && xcache_isset('campus_chamilo_org_whoisonline_count_simple_'.$_course['id'])) {
    $number_online_in_course = xcache_get('campus_chamilo_org_whoisonline_count_simple_'.$_course['id']);
  } else {
    $number_online_in_course = who_is_online_in_this_course_count(api_get_user_id(), api_get_setting('time_limit_whosonline'), $_course['id']);
    xcache_set('campus_chamilo_org_whoisonline_count_simple_'.$_course['id'],$number_online_in_course);
  }
}
Note that, as xCache is a shared caching system, it is very important to prefix your variables with a domain name or some kind of identifier, otherwise it would end up in disaster if you use a shared server for several portals.

2. Slow queries

Enable slow_queries in /etc/mysqld/my.cnf, restart MySQL then follow using sudo tail -f /var/log/mysql/mysql-slow.log

3. Indexes caching

One good reference: MySQL documentation on multiple key caches

4. Sessions directories

php_admin_value session.save_path 1;/var/www/test.chamilo.org/sessions/

5. Users upload directories

Create 10 directories inside the main/upload/users directory (from 0 to 9) and update your admin settings. This has to be done at install & configuration time, otherwise you might loose user data (or have to write a script for data distribution).
Don't have time or resources to optimize your Chamilo installation yourself? Hire an official Chamilo provider and get it sorted out professionally by specialists. Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Valid CSS