Alice and Bob Imagine there’s a city in a valley. On either side of the valley, there’s an army commanded by a general. On the left hill stands General Alice and her army. On the right hill, General Bob and his army. Alice and Bob want to capture the city, but neither side has an […]
Improving OpenVPN performance and throughput
OpenVPN, WireGuard, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP, IKEv2, PPTP, or others. If you had the luxury of choosing, which VPN protocols would you use? Therein lies my problem. In my current use case, I must find a way to improve OpenVPN performance and throughput. You may have been following my Linux home lab build. One of the most […]
Set PHP realpath_cache_size ‘correctly’
In 2012, I started enabling PHP realpath_cache_size and realpath_cache_ttl for performance benefits. At the time, I followed the settings I found here (has since been deleted). It bugged me that I was blindly setting the cache size without knowing how much storage was actually being used. In this post, I will demonstrate how to view the […]
PHP performance: oPcache Control Panels
OPcache is a PHP extension that improves PHP performance by storing precompiled script bytecode in shared memory, thereby removing the need for PHP to load and parse scripts on each request. The extension is built-in for PHP 5.5+. If you want to improve PHP performance, the first step should be to use PHP 8+, which […]
PHP Benchmarks: OPcache vs OPcache w/ Performance Tweaks
A few weeks ago, I wrote a short article highlighting GUI solutions for monitoring and controlling PHP OPcache. We all know that enabling PHP OPcache provides massive performance gains (see benchmark graph at the end of the article). In addition, since PHP 5.5, OPcache is now enabled by default. With these facts in mind, is […]
Observability, Getting Started – 50 Free Access and Open-Source Solutions
This article examines APM and observability solutions and tools. I’ve also included several quotes collected from observability companies who offer easy access to their platforms, and composed a list below of noteworthy observability solutions. I encourage observability providers to extend free and open access to their platforms and software, beyond free trials and without requiring […]
MySQL Performance Tuning: Tips, Scripts and Tools
With MySQL, common configuration mistakes can create severe performance problems. If you misconfigure just one of the many config parameters, it can cripple performance. Of course, the performance of MySQL is often tied to the efficiency of your MySQL queries. It’s essential to ensure that your performance issues are not due to poorly written MySQL […]
dstat command in Linux w/ examples
This dstat command guide follows my previous 90 Linux Commands frequently used by Linux Sysadmins article. As time allows, I will continue to publish articles on around the 90 commands geared toward Linux sysadmins and Linux power users. Let’s continue this series with the dstat command. Dstat is used for generating system resource statistics. It is a versatile […]
Apache Performance: Disable .htaccess
In 2013, while seeking a detailed guide on performance enhancements for a StackLinux client, I began a quest to find an article that explained the impact of WordPress Caching plugins—specifically, how those utilizing .htaccess might be less efficient than their counterparts. This search turned out to be unexpectedly time-consuming, but it eventually led me to this […]
3 essential website monitoring metrics to improve how your website functions
Most businesses utilize a web platform to promote their products or services in the digital age. A website with good response time and availability can boost the credibility of your business. However, websites are susceptible to lag and downtime, both of which result in frustrated end users. Following a poor user experience, potential customers may […]