Enabling BLOB Cache on with SharePoint 2010 BlobCache Manager (CodePlex)

I was recently asked to investigate Blob Cache for SharePoint 2010. It was suggested to use SharePoint 2010 BlobCache Manager (by Bram Nuyts http://bramnuyts.be/author/bramnuyts/) which can be found on CodePlex. The reason for this was to minimise manual changes to the Web.Config file, which is a good idea. However not everyone is happy to use CodePlex or other similar resources so be warned!

I downloaded the latest version 1.1 and installed the solution by running:

stsadm -o addsolution -filename "<path>BlobCacheManager.wsp"

And then deployed it, see the “Deploying a solution package” section here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262995.aspx. I then followed the instructions on the web site to configure it but found that BLOB Cache did not work. After a bit of digging I figured out wht had to be configured.

1. The object cache user accounts had to be configured. The details on how to do this are here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758656.aspx
   I hope to release a PowerShell script for this soon.
2. The object cache folder needed to be created, so I created “C:BlobCache14” note this was a development environment. Microsoft warns: “We strongly recommend that you specify a directory that is not on the same drive as where either the server operating system swap files or server log files are stored.”
   Ensure the foler is created on each WFE server.
3. The SharePoint 2010 BlobCache Manager had set the web.config blob cache attribute to True. This looks ok but it is case sensitiveand should be all lower case it – true. It should look similar to:

   <BlobCache location="C:BlobCache14" path=".(gif|jpg|jpeg|jpe|jfif|bmp|dib|tif|tiff|ico|png|wdp|hdp|css|js|asf|avi|flv|m4v|mov|mp3|mp4|mpeg|mpg|rm|rmvb|wma|wmv)$" maxSize="10" enabled="true" />

4. The folder that was created, “C:BlobCache14”,  has to allow the Application Pool account for the Web Application you are using BlobCache on, to write to it. My account was called demosp_webapp (following suggestions from Todd Klindt http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=237)

Once these were all configured BLOB caching started to work and I saw folders and files appearing in the “C: BlobCache14” folder.

Thanks to Paul Hunt for help with the object cache user accounts PowerShell script and Paul Grimley for suggesting the solution.