Changing to "fulltext" indexing

[RedWingFan]

I have two questions related to fulltext indexing.

First of all, we can't afford two servers anymore, so we have consolidated our forum back onto a newer single server that has a better processor, more memory, etc. The forum loads are good even during peak times--right now, we're averaging 0.6 to 0.8, with 400 users online. I'm running the APC cache right now, but do not yet use memcached, as I don't know if we really need it or not.

I have the busiest tables changed to InnoDB, and I'm afraid to change them back to MyISAM due to the table-locking issue, as that was a major bottleneck for us in the past. Our users really would like to use the improved fulltext search, but I don't know how much of a performance hit we'll take. Has anyone done comparisons on this? Would it help us to use memcached if we made the switch? (I don't see how, as our table locking issues involved write operations, not read.)

One other question: we have some areas of our forum set up that are not indexed by the vB search engine. These are generally "nonsense" threads that really have no need to be indexed. If we change to fulltext, will all forum threads then be indexed, or can we still exclude certain areas like we do now? Since the fulltext feature mainly resides in MySQL, I'm only concerned that everything will get indexed when we may not want it to be. (I haven't done much with fulltext my own database projects, so I'm not 100% certain on how the mechanics of it work.)

[Steve Machol]

Sorry you cannot use Fulltext with InnoDB tables. They have to be MyISAM.

[RedWingFan]

Hi Steve,

That's why I'm asking above if there is a performance hit from switching back to MyISAM, and how threads would be indexed if fulltext was used. I just wanted to find out before going through all the work, and having to undo it all if it killed our database performance.

[Steve Machol]

Sorry, I do not know if there is a performance hit or not. Fulltext indexes posts automatically, the same way the default vB search does.

[RedWingFan]

One other question: we have some areas of our forum set up that are not indexed by the vB search engine. These are generally "nonsense" threads that really have no need to be indexed. If we change to fulltext, will all forum threads then be indexed, or can we still exclude certain areas like we do now?

Just wanted to bump this question. I noticed that we still had our tables set to MyISAM and so far, the forum has been performing nicely. So I'm considering fulltext.

But, I just want to know if the database is going to index everything, or if we can still choose which forums get indexed like we do now with vB's native search.

Thanks!

[Steve Machol]

If you change to full text the process will index everything.

[RedWingFan]

If you change to full text the process will index everything.

Hmmm, that may not work so well, then. We have a couple of "moderator-only" areas that we wouldn't want showing up in search results, as well as a Marketplace area (buy/sell) and an off-topic area that not all members can access.

Or am I thinking of this the wrong way--is the return of search results based on a person's usergroup(s) when they are logged in? In other words, if they don't have access to Marketplace, would links to threads in Marketplace show up in their search results, or no? I'm thinking they won't, but wanted to verify before we got egg all over our faces.

Thanks!

[Steve Machol]

Search results are based on forum and usergroup permissions. They do not show up for people that do not have access to those forums. That is the way vB has always worked.

[RedWingFan]

Search results are based on forum and usergroup permissions. They do not show up for people that do not have access to those forums. That is the way vB has always worked.

Thanks for verifying, Steve! I'll run it past my staff and we'll decide if we can live with fulltext's shortcomings. Take care!