UltraStack Utilities for Caching in InMotion Central

Your UltraStack ONE production site in InMotion Central can use NGINX caching on the server, which can result in faster website performance since it does not have to generate content in real time. You can select from pre-configured profiles built for specific types of websites. Then, you can set your purge settings using a plugin such as NGINX Helper.

This ensures your visitors see the latest version of your website and not old cached content. In this guide, we’ll go over the UltraStack Utilities available on your UltraStack ONE for WordPress server to help you manage your cache settings via SSH. Then, we’ll show you how to select your caching profile and manage your cache settings using NGINX Helper.

Cache Profile Options

Below is a breakdown of the available profile options that you can choose from.

Set Your Caching Profile from InMotion Central

InMotion Central includes pre-configured NGINX profiles that are custom-made for specific website needs. Here are the steps to easily select the one that best suits the type of site you are building.

1. Log in to InMotion Central.
2. Select the project you’d like to manage.
3. Click the Manage Server link in the navigation menu.
4. Click NGINX Settings.
5. You will then see a list of the available NGINX profiles, for more information see the section above on Cache Profile Options. Select the one you want to use then click the Update Profile button.
   
   
6. Click the Update Profile button to save your NGINX settings. The playbook will then run and set up the new NGINX profile for your server.

Managing Cache from the WordPress Dashboard

Now that you have your NGINX profile selected you can manage your cache using a WordPress plugin. NGINX Helper will be installed automatically, but you can also find it on the WordPress.org Plugin Repository.

In this section, we’ll show you how to manage your cache from your WordPress Dashboard using NGINX Helper.

Using NGINX Helper

NGINX Helper will automatically be installed on your site, so you just need to access and choose your purge settings.

1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard
2. Click Settings, then NGINX Helper.
3. Check the box to Enable Purge.
4. You can then select your Purging Conditions as needed.
   
5. Click the Save All Changes button after choosing your settings.

Managing Cache With SSH

If you prefer to use SSH instead of a plugin to manage your cache, you can clear all cached data or just a single page.

View usutil Syntax and Examples

[root@vpsXXXXX ~]# usutil --help
usage: usutil [-h] [--domain DOMAIN] [--email ADDR] [--purge] [--purgeall] 
[--stats] [--info] [--span SPAN] [--lines X] [--logfile PATH] [--debug]
[--logdata] [--json] [--yaml] [--html] [--version][URL_OR_LOGFILE]

Nginx status reporting and cache manipulation utility

positional arguments:
  URL_OR_LOGFILE        Target URL when using --info or --purge modes; logfile when using report modes

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --domain DOMAIN, -d DOMAIN
                        Specify domain
  --email ADDR, -E ADDR
                        Email report to specified address
  --purge, -X           Mode: Purge cache for specified page
  --purgeall, -Z        Mode: Purge ALL cached data
  --stats, -S           Mode: Show cache stats [default]
  --info, -I            Mode: Show info for URL
  --span SPAN, -t SPAN  Parse specified span from logs (in hours)
  --lines X, -z X       Parse X number of lines from log tail
  --logfile PATH, -l PATH
                        Log output file
  --debug, -D           Enable debug output
  --logdata             Return logdata in JSON or YAML output
  --json, -J            Output format: JSON
  --yaml, -Y            Output format: YAML
  --html, -H            Output format: HTML
  --version, -v         show program's version number and exit

Purge All Cached data

usutil --purgeall

Purge Cache For a Specific page

usutil --purge http://example.com/page/

Stats & Reporting

Show cache stats [default]

usutil --stats

View Server Stats

Run the following command to view information about your server since it was last restarted.

Troubleshooting With –info

Run the following command to run a list of requests to help check the status of your cache.

usutil --info https://example.com

The above command will perform the following checks

• Make a request to the target URL and check the response status
• Calculates the total request time
• Checks the X-Proxy-Cache header
• Checks for a matching cache object in the user’s cache zone. If it exists, checks the cache expiration time and validity
• Compares the target URI against the domain’s ngxconf config, then displays any matching rules
• Determines if a page is considered ‘static content’, and whether it was served from NGINX or Apache
• Displays Location redirects
• Checks compression and content encoding
• Checks for the presence of the Vary header
• Checks for the presence of any cookies, then displays them
• Displays which cache control headers are being trusted, according to the domain’s ngxconf config
• Checks for the presence of the Upgrade header
• Checks if Apache mod_http2 is installed and in use with NGINX
• Checks the status of Apache, NGINX, and the associated PHP-FPM master
• Parses and displays corresponding lines from the Apache, NGINX, and PHP-FPM error logs

Congratulations! Now you know how to select your caching profile and manage your cache settings using NGINX Helper and SSH.