Moodle 1.5.2 (2005060220)
Win2003 dual 1.7 cpu, 1 gb ram
newish php and mysql
(besides the obvious: use a Linux flavor
I and others love the RSS block and messaging, but some in our site
think the blocks slow down the server too much. Can anyone give advice on how to
optimize performance of the RSS block and messaging? Thanks for any help 
Moodle 1.5.2 (2005060220)
Win2003 dual 1.7 cpu, 1 gb ram
newish php and mysql
(besides the obvious: use a Linux flavor
Moodle 1.5.2 (2005060220)
Win2003 dual 1.7 cpu, 1 gb ram
newish php and mysql
(besides the obvious: use a Linux flavor
I'm affraid the other obvious: buy more RAM...
For RSS block performance you have a few options.
1) increase the cache time. hold onto your feeds longer. the news will be more "stale" potentially but you'll have to read from a remote site less often.
2) setup a cron job to load your site pages. optionally mod the block to only refresh when a special settings passed from the cron job you create is passed. This way an end user never has to wait for the rss feed to be refreshed from the remote site at all. they always get a cached setting.
1) increase the cache time. hold onto your feeds longer. the news will be more "stale" potentially but you'll have to read from a remote site less often.
2) setup a cron job to load your site pages. optionally mod the block to only refresh when a special settings passed from the cron job you create is passed. This way an end user never has to wait for the rss feed to be refreshed from the remote site at all. they always get a cached setting.
Thanks Koen and Daryl. We are already looking into a new server with more RAM, and I think I'll get some students to work on Daryl's suggestion. That would be a great option for the block... Thanks again.
Daryl, how do you increase the cache time for the RSS feeds? How often are they checked by default?
You can change the cache time by going to the admin area, doing global block admin, then choosing config for the RSS feed. Change the "timeoutdesc" option. It defaults to 10 minutes. (So every 10 minutes someone who loads your web page will potentially wait a bit longer as the remote feed is loaded before your page is loaded and displayed to the user.)
Daryl
Daryl
Do you mean "block_rss_timeout:"? I don't have a "timeoutdesc" and mine seems to be at 30.
If that is the time in minutes before the RSS feed is refreshed, I don't see why 120 or 180 wouldn't be fine...
You are correct on all counts.