LiteSpeed

Tag: beginners guide

  • WpW: The Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress

    WpW: The Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress

    WordPress Wednesday: Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress

    Welcome to another installment of WordPress Wednesday!
    Today’s Topic: Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress

    Disclaimer: The information contained in this post is accurate for LSCWP v5.5 [release log]. If you are using a newer version of the plugin, some details may have changed. Please refer to our documentation for the latest!

    So you’ve downloaded the LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress plugin, installed it, and activated it. Now what?

    Some people are invigorated by the site of all of those settings tabs and are eager to jump right in, while others find all of the options overwhelming, and are paralyzed with indecision.

    Well, if you are part of the latter camp, you’ve come to the right place. Today we are going to talk about setting up LSCWP simply and easily. We’ll go over the things you must know in order to successfully use the plugin, and tell you which settings you can safely ignore.

    I’ve installed and activated LSCache for WordPress. Now what?

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress

    LSCWP essentially has two purposes: that of a full-page cache for your site’s dynamically-generated pages, and that of a site-optimization plugin. Most people who install LSCache do so for the caching functions, and the rest is just the icing on the cake.

    You are free to enable the caching functions and ignore everything else.

    Upon activation, you’ll find that caching is enabled, but everything else is disabled. If you navigate to LiteSpeed Cache > Cache > Cache you will see that Enable Cache is set to ON.

    You could stop right there, never configure another setting, and the plugin would probably cache your site very nicely. We specifically chose the default settings to work with the majority of sites right out of the box.

    TL;DR: This is a very long post, but that’s only because I set out to explain every single basic setting for you. In the event that you want to tweak things a bit, it doesn’t hurt to have a rudimentary understanding of these things. There’s no need to read it now, though! Use the default settings, bookmark the version of this post that exists in the documentation (which we will keep updated through each plugin version), and check it when you need the reference.

    Still reading? Ok! Let’s look at the first four tabs in the Cache section, and see what they do. These are the most basic settings for your cache.

    Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress

    LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress Basic Cache Tabs

    Tip: This is a high-level overview. For a detailed explanations of each setting on each tab of the Cache section, please see the Screen-by-Screen documentation.

    Cache Tab

    The first option on the Cache tab turns the caching functionality on and off. The remaining settings allow you to decide what types of content will be cached. By default, everything is enabled. If you don’t know what these settings do, it’s best to leave them set to their defaults.

    TTL Tab

    TTL stands for “Time to Live” and it refers to the number of seconds a page can remain in cache before it is considered stale. Once a page reaches its TTL, it is purged from cache. We’ve chosen default TTLs that should work for most sites, but you are free to change them.

    If you would like a deeper understanding of how content is cached and purged, take a look at this blog post. It’s written at a high-level, so you can get the gist without knowing a lot of jargon.

    Purge Tab

    There are sometimes situations where pages should be purged before their natural expiration. This section allows you to define the rules for that behavior. The default selections should work for most sites, but you can change them if you need to.

    Example

    If you write a new post, tag it “brownies,” and publish it in the “recipes” category, several pages will change: the home page, the recipes category archive page, the brownies tag archive page, your author archive page, and probably some other pages, depending on your theme.

    All of the affected pages will need to be purged in order to avoid serving stale content. These settings give you an opportunity to adjust the rules to fit what is needed by your site.

    Excludes Tab

    You may have pages that you don’t want cached at all. These options allow you to exclude specific parts of your site from being cached. Again, for most sites, there will be no need to change these settings. They are provided to allow you to make custom exceptions to the cache rules.

    The Other Cache Tabs

    The rest of the Cache tabs (four or five, depending on whether you have WooCommerce enabled) cover more advanced types of caching. We cover these in-depth in the Screen-by-Screen Cache section documentation.

    LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress Other Cache Tabs

    ESI

    “Edge Side Includes” (ESI) is a method through which you can “punch holes” in public content, and fill them with private or uncached content. ESI is useful for things like shopping cart widgets and personalized greetings, but we’ve left it disabled by default. Go in-depth here.

    Object

    The settings on this tab allow you to control an external object cache (Memcached, LSMCD, or Redis). The server admin needs to have previously enabled and configured this external cache.

    Browser

    Browser cache is a client-level cache for static files. With browser caching enabled, static files (like images) are stored locally on the user’s device the first time they are requested. After that, the content is pulled from their local storage until the browser cache expires. The settings on this tab control the browser cache.

    Advanced

    As you might guess from the name of this tab, it’s aimed at more experienced users. You are not likely to need this tab, unless you have some kind of conflict with another cache plugin.

    WooCommerce

    LSCache is compatible with WooCommerce. If you have WooCommerce enabled, this tab will appear, and will allow you to configure settings related to caching shop content.

    Other Plugin Sections

    There are many more sections to explore in the LSCache plugin. Each of these is documented in much greater detail in the docs Screen-by-Screen section. I’ve provided links to each section in the descriptions below.

    LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress Menu

    Dashboard

    The LiteSpeed Cache Dashboard allows you to see the status of all of your LSCache and QUIC.cloud services (Image Optimization, Critical CSS Generation, Low-Quality Image Placeholders, Cache Crawler, etc.) at a glance. You can also check your page load time and your page speed score. Learn more.

    General

    The settings in this section control your usage of QUIC.cloud services, the ability to auto upgrade the plugin, and which messages you want to have displayed on the dashboard. Learn more.

    CDN

    This section allows you to configure your Content Delivery Network for use with WordPress. If you don’t use a CDN, don’t worry about it. We’ve left CDN support disabled by default. Learn more.

    Image Optimization

    LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress provides the ability to optimize your images, making them smaller, and faster to transmit. This is done through a QUIC.cloud service and can be controlled in this section of the plugin. Learn more.

    Page Optimization

    There are several non-cache measures you can take to speed up your WordPress site, and many of them are supported in this tab. CSS and Javascript minification and combination, HTTP/2 push, asynchronous and deferred load… if you don’t know what these things mean, don’t worry. We’ve left them disabled by default. Learn more.

    Database

    This section allows you to optimize your WordPress database. Database optimization is a useful tool when it comes to speeding up your site. LSCWP’s DB Optimizer gives you an easy way to execute some of these tasks in your WordPress database. Learn more.

    Crawler

    We’ve disabled the crawler by default. When it’s active, it travels your site, refreshing any pages that may have expired from the cache. Crawling can be a resource-intensive process, and not all hosting providers will allow its use. If your hosting provider does allow crawling, it’s a nice way to keep your cache fresh. Learn more.

    Toolbox

    When you need to manually purge the cache, export your site settings, or debug an issue, you’ll find the means in the Toolbox section. Probably the most useful thing you will find here is the Environment Report. If you are having a problem and LiteSpeed support asks for your Report Number, this is where you would go to get it. Learn more.

    Watch the Video

    What now?

    Now, you sit back and watch your site load more quickly 😀

    If you’re feeling adventurous, you can start looking at some of those other features we glossed over. Or, maybe you’d like to try a preset. They’re a great way to kick start your configuration, and they’re available for every comfort level.

    We have documentation that provides explanations of every setting (specific sections are linked to above), and you can explore previous WordPress Wednesday topics for more in-depth discussions of some of them.

    If anything we covered was not clear enough, or you feel the need for additional help, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment here or post on our WordPress support forum. We enthusiastically support this plugin and are happy to answer any of your questions!

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    Have some of your own ideas for future WordPress Wednesday topics? Leave us a comment!

    Don’t forget to meet us back here next week for the next installment. In the meantime, here are a few other things you can do:

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    This content was last verified and updated in June of 2023. If you find an inaccuracy, please let us know! In the meantime, see our documentation site for the most up-to-date information.

  • JT: The Beginner’s Guide to LSCache for Joomla

    JT: The Beginner’s Guide to LSCache for Joomla

    Joomla Tips: Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla

    Welcome to the first installment of LiteSpeed’s Joomla Tips!
    Today we are sharing a Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla!

    If your Joomla site is powered by LiteSpeed Web Server, you have a very powerful new tool at your disposal: the LiteSpeed Cache plugin for Joomla. LSCache is a high-performance, open source, user friendly cache plugin, and you don’t have to be a site optimization expert to use it.

    How it Works

    Joomla sites consist of dynamic pages that are built with PHP. The pages of a Joomla site don’t exist anywhere in the file system; they are constructed on demand through PHP, and then served to the visitor as HTML. This can be a resource-heavy process, and the LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla plugin is one way of dealing with it.

    When Joomla dynamically generates the static HTML page, LSCache communicates with LiteSpeed Web Server to store a copy of it. Once the static copy exists in the cache, then that copy can be served to future visitors, eliminating the expensive Joomla PHP process for all but the first visitor to request the page.

    When your site is cached, it requires much less involvement from the Joomla backend, which translates into a faster site and a better experience for your site’s visitors.

    Enable the Plugin

    We’re going to assume you (or your hosting provider) have already installed the plugin and configured LSCache at the server or virtual host level. If you need instructions for that, you can see our wiki. Don’t forget to deactivate all other full-page cache plugins, including “System – Page Cache” and “JotCache,” as well.

    NOTE: You can still use other types of cache (like object cache), but only one page cache can be used at a time, so you’ll need to disable the others, if you want to use LSCache.

    From your Joomla Administrator menu, navigate to Extensions > Plugins. If you have a lot of plugins listed, type LiteSpeed into the search box to bring up the LiteSpeed Cache Plugin.

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: Enable the Plugin

    Look for the green check mark next to the plugin name. This indicates that the plugin is installed and enabled. If you see a red X instead, click the red X to enable the plugin. Once you’ve done that, the green check mark should appear, and you are good to go.

    Configure the Plugin

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: Cat in a Box

    LiteSpeed Cache works with most Joomla setups right out of the box. “Out of the box,” of course, is a figure of speech. Software rarely comes in a box anymore, which is great for the environment, but maybe not so great for your cat, who just loves cardboard boxes…

    The point, of course, is that LSCache for Joomla usually just works. It can often be enabled and ignored. There’s usually no need to play around with the settings, unless your site has atypical needs.

    Just the same, let’s go over some of those settings, so that you can use them if you want to.

    Navigate to System > Global Configuration > LiteSpeed Cache to access the plugin’s settings. The first tab is for Basic settings.

    The Basic Tab

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: The Basic Tab

    Here is where you enable or disable the caching functionality of the plugin (not to be confused with enabling the plugin itself, which we did earlier), and set a few parameters for the way it should behave.

    Enable LiteSpeed Cache

    By default, caching is already enabled once you install and enable the plugin. If you need to stop caching your site for whatever reason, you can press Disable to turn it off. Simply press Enable to get it back up and running again.

    Public Cache TTL

    “TTL” stands for Time to Live, and it refers to the length of time a web page is valid within the cache. The default is 2000 minutes, but if you have a site that updates frequently, you might want to make that number smaller. Similarly, if you have a site that is fairly static and rarely changes, you can make that number much larger.

    Note: LSCache’s “smart purge” technology allows you to confidently set a high TTL, knowing that if content changes during that time, the cache will automatically be purged for any pages that are relevant to that change. We’ll explore that concept in more detail in a future Joomla Tips article.

    Purge All on Plugin Update

    If you are concerned that plugin updates are going to change some of the pages of your site (thereby causing the cached copies to become outdated), then you should enable this setting. It’s disabled by default, because usually plugin updates have minimal effect (if any) on the displayed content.

    Purge All on Language Update

    This is similar to the previous setting, except it refers to language updates, and it is enabled by default.

    Logging Level

    You can leave logging off in most cases. It’s handy to turn on logging when you are trying to diagnose a problem. If you’ve contacted our support team for help with an issue, chances are we’ll ask you to turn on logging and we’ll also tell you which level would be appropriate.

    Any time you turn on logging, it should be temporary, as logs can eat up disk space pretty quickly.

    All Other Tabs

    The other tabs may be ignored, unless you are feeling experimental, or you are using your Joomla installation for ecommerce. We’ll discuss them in detail in future issues of Joomla Tips. For now, here’s a short overview explaining the purpose of each tab.

    Exclude Rules

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: Exclude Rules

    This tab allows you to specify Joomla components, menus, and URLs that should not be cached.

    Advanced

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: Advanced Tab

    You can set up ESI here (a must if you are trying to cache an ecommerce site), give yourself the ability to clear the cache from a secure link outside of Admin, set a different TTL for the homepage, and set up LSCache to save separate views for mobile and desktop.

    Logged-in Users

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: Logged in Users Tab

    These settings pertain to caching for users who are logged in. By default caching for logged-in users is disabled.

    Recache

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: Recache Tab

    Usually, when a page is purged from the cache, it remains uncached until a visitor comes along and requests the page. With Auto Recache enabled, LiteSpeed will automatically re-cache those purged pages, which means that your site’s visitors will have a lower chance of ever encountering uncached content.

    Permissions

    This is your standard Joomla permissions page, and every setting defaults to Inherited.

    Support

    You can refer to this page if you need support. It includes some handy links.

    Manual Purge

    In a perfect world, you could enable caching and never look at the plugin again. In the real world, though, things happen, and you might need to manually purge the cache now and then. Here’s how:

    Beginner's Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for Joomla: Manual Purge

    Navigate to Components > LiteSpeed Cache, and press the green Purge All LiteSpeed Cache button. All of the entries currently stored in the cache will be cleared.

    If you want to re-populate the cache after that, you can do so via the Rebuild All LiteSpeed Cache button.

    And that is all you need to know to use LSCache for Joomla successfully as a beginner! There may come a time when you would like to explore ESI, or Logged-in cache (both very powerful features, especially for ecommerce). We’ll be talking all about those options in a future Joomla Tips, so stay tuned!

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    Disclaimer: The information contained in this post is accurate for LSCJoomla v1.2.0. If you are using a newer version of the plugin, some details may have changed. Please refer to our wiki for the latest!

    Have some of your own ideas for future Joomla Tips topics? Leave us a comment!

    While you’re waiting for the next installment, here are a few things you can do: