Drupal 6 Performance Tips

Using DB Maintenance and Boost

In this chapter, we're going to install, confi gure, and utilize the DB Maintenance and
Boost modules. DB Maintenance will allow us to maintain and optimize our MySQL
database from within the Drupal admin interface. Boost will help us to speed up
page load times on our site for our anonymous site users by using its sophisticated
and advanced page, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript caching mechanisms. We'll look at
basic introductory Boost concepts in this chapter, and later in Chapter 6 we will look
at more advanced topics using the Boost module. Consider this a two part dose of the
Boost module. Both of these contributed modules will help you diagnose problems
on your site and server as well as help to keep your site running smoothly and in
an optimized fashion. These are not required modules, but rather are recommended
modules to add to your Drupal performance arsenal. The way this chapter will work
is that we'll outline the purpose of each module, install and confi gure it, and then use
it on a specifi c topic, for example, within your site. This will give you some practice
using contributed Drupal modules and also a look at the variety of performancebased
modules that are available from the Drupal project community.
By the end of this chapter you will know how to install, confi gure, and use the
following contributed performance modules:

• DB Maintenance module
• Boost