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Phorum 5 performance notes
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==========================
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Several of Phorum's options have a tradeoff effect: enabling more
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features can slow Phorum down. This document describes which options
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these are and tries to explain the performance cost of each one.
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Which options you should turn off to improve performance depends
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on the way you use your Phorum installation.
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Table of contents:
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1. Global Settings
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   1.1 DNS Lookups
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   1.2 Count New Private Messages
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   1.3 Enable Moderator Notifications
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   1.4 Track User Usage
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2. Forum Settings
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   2.1 Email Messages to Moderators
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   2.2 Allow Email Notification
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   2.3 Count Views
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   2.4 Show New Count in Forum List
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   2.5 Ban List
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   2.6 Censor List
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   2.7 Move Threads on Reply
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   2.8 Check for duplicates
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1. Global Settings
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 1.1 DNS Lookups
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 ---------------
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    DNS lookups cause Phorum to display DNS entries (hostnames) instead
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    of IP addresses on posts. It also will enable checking if mail
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    addresses point to valid domains.
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    On a forum with a lot of posts, enabling this will result in a
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    significant number of queries to your DNS server. Phorum's performance
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    will slow down while a query is running, as it will wait for the result
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    of the query.
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    If your DNS server is slow, this may give the impression to your users
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    that posting a message is very slow. If that is the case, you should
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    turn DNS lookups off. If you have access to a fast DNS server or only
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    have a few regular posters, you should be able to leave it on.
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 1.2 Count New Private Messages
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 ------------------------------
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    If enabled, this option will alert users when they have new private
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    messages. On every page a logged in user visits, Phorum will check
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    to see if they have new private messages.
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    If you have a large number of active users at one time with a large
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    number of private messages, this query can start to slow down your
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    database. Turning it off may help performance, but will also remove
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    the notification users get when they receive a new private message.
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    You can also enable userdata caching under "Cache Settings" to
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    improve performance.
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 1.3 Enable Moderator Notifications
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 ----------------------------------
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    Similar to the Count New Private Messages option, this option will
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    alert users who are also moderators when they have a new item that
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    requires their attention.
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    The performance hit of this feature is basically nothing for users
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    without moderator permissions, as Phorum will never perform the checks.
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    Moderators will suffer a small performance hit, depending on what type
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    of moderator they are.
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    Administrators will suffer a larger performance hit, as they are
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    effectively moderators of every type, so all of the checks will be
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    performed.
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 1.4 Track User Usage
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 --------------------
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    This option controls how often Phorum will record when a user was last
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    active. Setting this to be more frequent results in more accurate last
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    activity data, but also causes more database writes.
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    The "Constantly" setting will record the users activity on every page
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    hit by any logged in user, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number
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    of database writes. In most databases, a write is much slower then a
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    read, so this can dramatically reduce performance. This setting is not
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    recommended, except for installations with very few users, or very
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    powerful hardware.
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    If you are using a module that actively requires this data (such as the
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    Online Users module), the setting "Once per 5 minutes" is the best
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    setting, as the data will be too out of date if you update the data
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    less frequently.
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    If you are not using such a module, "Once per day" or "Once per hour" are
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    highly recommended over the other options. "Never" disables this function
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    entirely, and is recommended if you simply don't care to know if a user
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    is active or not.
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    Note: the option "Cache User Data" should be disabled if you have this
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    feature set to "Once per 5 minutes" or "Constantly", as the caching
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    will not be of much use.
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2. Forum Settings
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 2.1 Email Messages to Moderators
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 --------------------------------
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    If enabled, every post in the forum will be emailed to the forum's
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    moderators. Administrators are automatically moderators in every forum,
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    and will also get the emails.
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    This option should not directly affect Phorum's performance, but when
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    a post is made, it will cause some emails to be created. If you have a
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    large number of moderators and a lot of posts being made by users, this
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    can generate a significant amount of email traffic.
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    The traffic should only be a problem on very large forums or if you have
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    a slow mail server. In other cases, it should not cause significant
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    performance issues.
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 2.2 Allow Email Notification
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 ----------------------------
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    This option has similar issues to the Email Messages to Moderators
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    setting, except the recipients of the emails are users who have
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    selected the option to have replies in a followed thread emailed to
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    them.
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    If a large number of users is using this feature in a busy thread, it
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    can affect performance. If only few users are using this feature, it
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    will not cause significant performance issues.
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 2.3 Count Views
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 ---------------
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    If enabled, this feature records the number of views each post gets.
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    For every post read, the counter will be incremented in the database.
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    On a busy forum, this will result in a tremendous number of database
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    writes, dramatically slowing down performance.
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    Enabling this feature is not recommended for high traffic forums,
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    unless you have very powerful hardware.
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 2.4 Show New Count in Forum List
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 --------------------------------
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    If enabled, the count of new messages for each forum will appear in
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    index.php. While quite handy, this has to run several queries per
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    listed forum. If there are many forums on the index.php page, there
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    could be a significant performance hit.
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 2.5 Ban List
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 ------------
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    The ban list is a list of words that are banned when posting a message.
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    There is a small performance penalty for searching for the banned words,
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    but only when posting.
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 2.6 Censor List
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 ---------------
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    The censor list is a list of filtered words, that is checked on every
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    post read. Because it is checked far more often than the ban list, a
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    large censor list will affect performance much more.
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 2.7 Move Threads on Reply
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 -------------------------
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    "Move Threads on Reply" means that a thread which gets a new reply causes
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    the topic to be moved to the top of the forum, hence the topics are
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    sorted by their last reply and not by their first post in the message
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    list.
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    In Flat-mode there is no performance hit. In Threaded-mode it causes
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    a large overhead because of the complexity of the sorting and the
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    counting of posts on a page.
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 2.8 Check for duplicates
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 ------------------------
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    "Check for duplicates" runs one additional query while posting to check
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    if that post has been made before. That query should be fast and just
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    a small overhead.
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