How to Install Memcached on CentOS 7
Memcached is a distributed, high-performance, in-memory caching system that is primarily used to speed up sites that make heavy use of databases. It can, however, be used to store objects of any kind. Nearly every popular CMS has a plugin or module to take advantage of Memcached, and many programming languages have a Memcached library, including PHP, Perl, Ruby, and Python. Memcached runs in memory and is thus quite speedy since it does not need to write data to disk.
- These instructions are intended specifically for installing Memcached on a single CentOS 7 node.
- I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Core Managed CentOS 7 server, and I’ll be logged in as root.
First, clean-up yum:
yum clean all
As a matter of best practice we’ll update our packages:
yum -y update
Installing Memcached and related packages is now as simple as running just one command:
yum -y install memcached
Use the following command to view information on the Memcached command:
memcached -h
The default configuration file can be found at:
/etc/sysconfig/memcached
When started, Memcached will start on port 11211 by default per the default configuration file:
PORT=”11211″
USER=”memcached”
MAXCONN=”1024″
CACHESIZE=”64″
OPTIONS=””
To change the port (PORT), the user Memcached runs as (USER), the maximum number of allowed connections to Memcached (MAXCONN), or the cache size in megabytes (CACHESIZE), simply edit the configuration file.
For a refresher on editing files with vim see: New User Tutorial: Overview of the Vim Text Editor
EXAMPLE: If I wanted to run Memcached on port 1337, with 4GB of memory, and allow a maximum of 2,000 connections, I would change the config file as follows.
Let’s edit the configuration file:
vim /etc/sysconfig/memcached
To the following:
PORT=”1337″
USER=”memcached”
MAXCONN=”2000″
CACHESIZE=”4096″
OPTIONS=””
Exit and save the configuration file, and then restart Memcached
systemctl restart memcached
And then start Memcached:
systemctl start memcached
Be sure that Memcached starts at boot:
systemctl enable memcached
To check the status of Memcached:
systemctl status memcached
To stop Memcached:
systemctl stop memcached
Related Articles:
- How to Install Adminer MySQL Database Management Tool on AlmaLinux
- How to Edit the PHP Memory for Your WordPress Site via WP Toolkit
- 4 Methods for How to Install Yarn on Windows Server
- How to Install Bpytop Resource Monitoring Tool on AlmaLinux
- How to Fix “This Site Can’t Provide a Secure Connection” Error
- How to Install MongoDB on AlmaLinux

About the Author: J. Mays
As a previous contributor, JMays shares his insight with our Knowledge Base center. In our Knowledge Base, you'll be able to find how-to articles on Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora and much more!
Our Sales and Support teams are available 24 hours by phone or e-mail to assist.
Latest Articles
How to Install Adminer MySQL Database Management Tool on AlmaLinux
Read ArticleWhat is CGI-Bin and What Does it Do?
Read ArticleTop 10 Password Security Standards
Read ArticleTop 10 Password Security Standards
Read ArticleHow to Use the WP Toolkit to Secure and Update WordPress
Read Article