hash

This directive appeared in version 1.7.2.

Specifies a load balancing method for a server group where the client-server mapping is based on the hashed key value. The key can contain text, variables, and their combinations. Note that adding or removing a server from the group may result in remapping most of the keys to different servers. The method is compatible with the Cache::Memcached Perl library.

If the consistent parameter is specified the ketama consistent hashing method will be used instead. The method ensures that only a few keys will be remapped to different servers when a server is added to or removed from the group. This helps to achieve a higher cache hit ratio for caching servers. The method is compatible with the Cache::Memcached::Fast Perl library with the ketama_points parameter set to 160.