---
title: "Step By Step Guide To Install Memcache On Linux"
url: https://thecancerus.com/step-by-step-guide-to-install-memcache-on-linux/
date: 2008-12-18
modified: 2008-12-18
author: "ican"
description: "This post is more like a note to me, so that in future I can look up for steps involved in installing memcache on Linux servers like Centos or RHEL...."
categories:
  - "how too?"
tags:
  - "centos"
  - "installing memcache"
  - "memcache"
  - "memcached"
word_count: 532
---

# Step By Step Guide To Install Memcache On Linux

This post is more like a note to me, so that in future I can look up for steps involved in installing [memcache](http://www.danga.com/memcached/) on Linux servers like Centos or RHEL.

Those of you who [follow me on twitter](http://twitter.com/thecancerus), will know that me and my friends spends hours trying to install memcache on one of our web server. Normally this is a five minute job, but unfortunately for us those tricks did not work out.

So if you have tried YUM and APT-GET and still could not install the memcache then read on, to find the alternate( read manual, without magic ) way of doing it.

When we talk about Memcache their two things that needs to be installed

- **Memcache Daemon** know as memcached, and
- **Memcache client** for your programing language, in this case PHP.

## Installing Memcache Daemon

Note these steps has been taken from [http://in2.php.net/manual/en/memcache.installation.php](http://in2.php.net/manual/en/memcache.installation.php)

### Steps to install Libevent(memcached dependency)

- First we need to check if libevent is installed or not?

type *whereis libevent* on shell.

- If you don't find it, then we need to download and install it.  Type following sequence of commands on your shell

wget [http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent-1.4.8-stable.tar.gz](http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent-1.4.8-stable.tar.gz)
- *tar xfz libevent-1.4.8-stable.tar.gz*
- *cd libevent-1.4.8-stable*
- *./configure*
- *make*
- *sudo make install*

- Finally we need to create a symlink to libevent

type  *sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libevent-1.4.so.2 /usr/lib* on shell.

Now that we have installed the dependencies, we will install the memcahced.

### Steps to install Memcached

- Download and install, for that type following sequence of commands on your shell

wget [http://danga.com/memcached/dist/memcached-1.2.6.tar.gz](http://danga.com/memcached/dist/memcached-1.2.6.tar.gz)
- tar xfz memcached-1.2.6.tar.gz
- cd memcached-1.2.6
- *./configure*
- *make*
- *sudo make install*

- Run Memcached as a daemon (d = daemon, m = memory, u = user, l = IP to listen to, p = port)

type *memcached -d -m 1024 -u root -l 127.0.0.1 -p 11211 *on shell

Note: versions numbers mentioned here might be outdated, so do check for updated package to download.

Now we have installed and started the Memcache daemon, it's time to install PHP client.

## Installing Memcache Extension for PHP

Some of the steps mentioned below are taken from [http://www.sitepoint.com/article/getting-started-with-pear/2/](http://www.sitepoint.com/article/getting-started-with-pear/2/)

- Let's determine the PHP version installed and also make sure it is in system path.

type* php -v* on you shell, it should show something like PHP 5.2.6 (cli) (built: Nov  4 2008 09:25:57)
- type *whereis php* to get the path where PHP is installed in your system.
- In your accounts home directory create/edit *'.profile'* file and add '`export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin`' where '*/usr/local/bin*' is the folder where php executable is installed.

- Install PEAR, type following sequence of commands on your shell

*wget *[*http://pear.php.net/go-pear*](http://pear.php.net/go-pear)* -O go-pear.php *
- *php go-pear.php* and follow the installation instructions
- *ls -l ~/.pearrc *
- edit the '*.profile*' (again) and add export *PATH=/home/yourname/pear/bin:$PATH*

- Finally Install Memcache

type *pecl install memcache* on your shell, it will install memcahce extension for PHP.

- Edit *php.ini* to add '*extension=memcache.so*', to find the exact php.ini file used by your system

*php -i | grep 'php.ini' *

- Restart apache, and you are done  type one of the commands below to do that

*/etc/init.d/apache  restart* , or
- *service httpd restart *

I hope this helps and save some time for you, I have a limited knowledge of Linux, so if some one can improve in the steps, please do so in the comments.