OpenLiteSpeed cachedata/priv grows continuously (30MB/10min, ~3GB/day)

edumembe

Hi everyone,

I’m seeing a continuous and steady disk growth on an OpenLiteSpeed server related to the directory:

/usr/local/lsws/cachedata/priv

Context:

Around 60 WordPress sites hosted on the same server

All sites are using the LiteSpeed Cache plugin

No abnormal traffic spikes detected

Disk usage increases steadily at about 30 MB every 10 minutes (≈ 3 GB per 24 hours)

The directory keeps growing and does not seem to reduce on its own

I’ve been monitoring this over time and confirmed that the growth is consistent and reproducible.

I’ve searched through the Enhance forum and documentation but couldn’t find any reference to this specific behavior or any recommended limits or cleanup strategy for cachedata/priv.

I’d like to know:

Is this expected behavior when running many WordPress sites with LSCache?

Is there a recommended server-level configuration or limit for private cache?

Has anyone else encountered this with OpenLiteSpeed + LiteSpeed Cache under Enhance?

Is there any official guidance on managing or controlling this directory?

Any insights or experiences would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

cPFence

edumembe tecreasey

You can set up a daily cache-clearing script like this and add it to a daily cron job:

#!/bin/sh
TARGET_DIR="/usr/local/lsws/cachedata/priv"

if [ -d "$TARGET_DIR" ]; then
  # Delete regular files older than 24 hours (1440 minutes)
  find "$TARGET_DIR" -type f -mmin +1440 -delete
  echo "Private cache files older than 24 hours cleared."
else
  echo "Directory not found — nothing to clear."
fi

Relevant link:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/extremely-large-server-cache-file/

tecreasey

I too have noticed this and I am interested to know if anyone else has a script or a server level setting that can manage this.

DracoBlue

You can clear that directory any time you like. I would recommend restarting openlitespeed after this with systemctl restart lshttpd

edumembe

Thanks for the clarification 👍
Yes, I’ve confirmed that the directory can be safely deleted, and I’ve already cleared it manually.

The problem is more on the operational side: having to keep an eye on this directory and manually clean it is not ideal. Of course, it could be handled with a cron job or a simple cleanup script, but that feels more like a workaround than a real solution.

What still puzzles me is that once the content has already been cached, it seems to be cached again continuously, causing the directory to grow without ever stabilizing. I would expect the cache to reach a certain size and then reuse or evict entries, rather than increasing indefinitely.

So the real question for me is:

Is there a way to limit or cap the growth of cachedata/priv at server level?

Or to prevent already-cached content from being re-written over and over?

Or some LSWS/LSCache setting that controls eviction or max size for private cache?

If anyone has found a proper configuration-based solution (not just periodic deletion), I’d really like to hear about it.

Thanks!

cPFence

edumembe

As long as you’re not seeing any io issues, having that cache grow is generally a good sign and helps save server resources. The more cache, the better. It’s only something to worry about if disk io starts to increase, which is very unlikely. In that case, you’d want to inspect the logs and add a few cache exclusions to keep things sane.

Otherwise, a simple daily cleanup via cron is still the most practical approach, and we also recommend clearing LS cache daily across all sites.