1) Install memcached.

Enable rpmforge respository to install latest memcached rpm using yum.

For i386 / i686

rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm

For x86_64

rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/x86_64/rpmforge/RPMS//rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm

Use yum to install memcached

yum -y install memcached

As soon as memcached installation completed, edit options for memcached in /etc/sysconfig/memcached to meet your need.

vi /etc/sysconfig/memcached

PORT=”11211″                #define on which port to urn
USER=”nobody”           #same as apache user
MAXCONN=”1024″     #maximum number of connections allowed
CACHESIZE=”64″         #memory used for caching
OPTIONS=”"                   #use for any custom options

Save the file. All options can be seen by using following command

memcached -h

Start memcached

/etc/init.d/memcached start
Starting Distributed memory caching (memcached):           [  OK  ]

to check the running status of memcached

/etc/init.d/memcached status
memcached (pid 6475) is running…

and

netstat -anp | grep 11211
tcp  0  0 :::11211    :::*  LISTEN      6475/memcached
udp 0  0 0.0.0.0:11211  0.0.0.0:* 6475/memcached

2) Install PHP Extension.

Download and install latest stable memcache version from PECL.

cd /usr/src
wget http://pecl.php.net/get/memcache-2.2.5.tgz
tar zxvf memcache-2.2.5.tgz
cd memcache-2.2.5
phpize
./configure
make
make install

memcache.so will be install in php modules directory, now enable memcache.so extension in php.ini

To find out your php.ini location, execute following command

php -i | grep php.ini
Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /usr/local/lib
Loaded Configuration File => /usr/local/lib/php.ini

vi /usr/local/lib/php.ini

extension = “memcache.so”

save the file and restart httpd server.

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

To check is memcache extension loaded in php, execute following command.

php -i | grep memcache
memcache
memcache support => enabled
memcache.allow_failover => 1 => 1
memcache.chunk_size => 8192 => 8192
memcache.default_port => 11211 => 11211
memcache.default_timeout_ms => 1000 => 1000
memcache.hash_function => crc32 => crc32
memcache.hash_strategy => standard => standard
memcache.max_failover_attempts => 20 => 20
Registered save handlers => files user sqlite memcache
PWD => /usr/src/memcache-2.2.5
_SERVER["PWD"] => /usr/src/memcache-2.2.5
_ENV["PWD"] => /usr/src/memcache-2.2.5

This information can also be seen using phpinfo().

If you have question please comment.