How to Configure Apache Cache in Ubuntu

Last updated on April 14th, 2023 at 09:04 am

Apache’s caching is a great feature to improve website speed as well as reduce server load, thereby improve website performance. You can easily setup Apache content caching with a few lines. Here’s how to configure Apache Cache in Ubuntu

How to Configure Apache Cache in Ubuntu

Here are the steps to enable Apache cache in Ubuntu. After you configure Apache cache, you may want to use a reporting software to monitor the key metrics about your website/application such as signups, traffic, sales, revenue, etc. using dashboards & charts, to ensure everything is working well and spot issues quickly.

1. Install Apache Cache

Open terminal and run the following commands to install Apache modules

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2-utils

2. Enable Apache cache modules

sudo a2enmod cache
sudo a2enmod cache_disk
sudo a2enmod expires
sudo a2enmod headers

Bonus read: How To Enable mod_ssl in Apache

3. Restart Apache Web Server

sudo systemctl restart apache2

4. Update Virtual Hosts Configuration

There are many ways to configure Apache cache. However, it is advisable to enable Apache cache on a domain-by-domain basis. For this, you can open your domain (e.g example.com) virtual host configuration file

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

If you want to do it across your entire Apache web server, or you don’t use virtual hosts, then you can update Apache server configuration file.

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Scroll to the bottom of the file and add the following lines just before line </VirtualHost>

CacheQuickHandler off
CacheLock on
CacheLockPath /tmp/mod_cache-lock
CacheLockMaxAge 5
CacheIgnoreHeaders Set-Cookie


    CacheEnable disk /
    CacheHeader on
    CacheDefaultExpire 800
    CacheMaxExpire 64000
    CacheIgnoreNoLastMod On
    ExpiresActive on
    ExpiresDefault A300

Save and Exit File. There are 2 ways to configure Apache cache. If you set the 1st line above, that is,

CacheQuickHandler off

then Cache will be located behind the server. In this case, each request will reach Apache server and only then hit the cache. This is useful in case you want to do some kind of authentication before sending response.

If you set,

CacheQuickHandler on

then Cache will be placed before the server. In this case, the request will first hit the cache. If there is no/expired cache entry, then the request will be sent to server.

Bonus Read: How to Redirect 404 to URL using .htaccess

5. Test Apache Configuration

Test Apache configuration for errors.

sudo apachectl configtest

6. Restart Apache Web Server

If there are no errors, restart Apache web server to enable cache.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

7. Test Apache Cache

You can test Apache cache by viewing the contents of directory where cache is being stored.

ls -la /var/cache/apache2/mod_cache_disk/

Initially, you will see very few entries in Apache cache location. As your website visitors browse your website, this directory will grow over time. If you want to clear Apache cache, simply delete the contents of the above folder.

If Apache cache doesn’t work properly for you, then you can always disable Apache cache.

By the way, if you want to create charts & dashboards to monitor your business or website, you can try Ubiq. We offer a 14-day free trial.

Sreeram Sreenivasan

Sreeram Sreenivasan is the Founder of Ubiq. He has helped many Fortune 500 companies in the areas of BI & software development.