Is it possible to update Drupal page cache right after it is cleared?

Question

I am trying to improve Drupal performance and I have all the tuning usual suspects setup:

• Varnish
• Memcache
• APC
• Drupal core cache

From what I understand when you clear the Drupal cache it does not replenish page caches until an anonymous end user makes a request for the page. Drupal then builds the cache and the following page requests are snappy. The problem with this is the non cached call can take 2- 4 seconds to finish. We would like all page requests to be as snappy as a cached request. So we are looking into either a way auto replenish or set up a cron that would hopefully make the non cached page request before an end user.

If my assumptions are correct is there a module or way to automatically replenish all page caches? I am assuming that since this does not automatically happen that it is potentially a resource issue to cache the entire site at once. But if we set Drupals cache to live for 1 or 2 days and cleared cache on a cron in the middle of the night it might be ok to automatically replenish. Has anyone ever tried to solution this?

Answer 1

Cache Warmer Module is the one you are looking for.

cache_warmer is a drush command that hits a set of URIs of a drupal site based on the freshness of the content.

It is a drush integration for warming the caches using httprl, which means calls can be made parallely as well.

Since it is a drush extension you can tie it up easily with your cron as well.