---
title: "Installing Memcached on Ubuntu"
source: "https://docs.nexcess.com/hosting/server-administration/linux/installing-memcached-on-ubuntu/"
description: "Install Memcached on Ubuntu 12.04+ to speed up dynamic sites by caching database content. Root access is required for setup."
vertical: "Hosting"
date: "2024-03-04"
last_modified: "2026-07-29"
---

# Installing Memcached on Ubuntu

These instructions are for Ubuntu versions 12.04 and up. They are intended specifically for installing Memcached on a single Ubuntu LTS node. You must be logged in as root to install Memcached.

## Install Memcached

It is best practice before any installation, that you update your packages. You can do this by using the following command:

```
apt-get update
```

Now that your packages are updated, you can install Memcached:

```
apt-get install memcached
```

## Configure the installation

View the information on the Memcached command:

```
memcached -h
```

The default configuration file will be found at /etc/memcached.conf

Memcached will start on port 11211 by default in the configuration file:

```
#Default connection port is 11211
-p1121
```

To change the port, use vim to change the number in the configuration file.

For example, if you want to run Memcached on port 1337 with 4GB of memory and allow a maximum of 2,000 connections, you would change the configuration file as shown below.

```
vim /etc/memcached.conf
```

Edit the following sections:

```
-p 1337
-m 4096
-c 2000
```

Save and exit the file and then restart Memcached.

```
service memcached restart
```

## Start, Stop and Check Status

You can run the following commands to start, stop and check the status of Memcached

Start

```
service memcached start
```

Stop

```
service memcached stop
```

Check Status

```
service memcached status
```

Now that you’ve seen how to install Memcached, let’s take a look at how to install the PHP Extension in our article [Installing Memcached PHP Extension on Ubuntu](https://www.liquidweb.com/help-docs/installing-memcached-php-extension-on-ubuntu/).