ubuntu

I moved my domain to UpCloud (on the other side of the world) from Vultr (Sydney) and could not be happier with the performance.

December 22, 2020 by Simon

I moved my domain to UpCloud (on the other side of the world) from Vultr (Sydney) and could not be happier with the performance. Here is what I did to set up a complete Ubuntu 18.04 system (NGINX, PHP, MySQL, WordPress etc). This is not a paid review (just me documenting my steps over 2 days).

Background (CPanel hosts)

In 1999 I hosted my first domain (www.fearby.com) on a host in Seattle (for $10 USD a month), the host used CPanel and all was good. After a decade I was using the domain more for online development and the website was now too slow (I think I was on dial-up or ADSL 1 at the time). I moved my domain to an Australian host (for $25 a month).

After 8 years the domain host was sold and performance remained mediocre. After another year the new host was sold again and performance was terrible.

I started receiving Resource Limit Is Reached warnings (basically this was a plot by the new CPanel host to say “Pay us more and this message will go away”).

Page load times were near 30 seconds.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was their demand of $150/year for a dodgy SSL certificate.

I needed to move to a self-managed server where I was in control.

Buying a Domain Name

Buy a domain name from Namecheap here.

Self Managed Server

I found a good web IDE ( http://www.c9.io/ ) that allowed me to connect to a cloud VM. C9 allowed me to open many files and terminal windows and reconnect to them later. Don’t get excited, though, as AWS has purchased C9 and it’s not the same.

C9 IDE

I spun up a Digital Ocean Server at the closest data centre in Singapore. Here was my setup guide creating a Digital Ocean VM, connecting to it with C9 and configuring it. I moved my email to G Suite and moved my WordPress to Digital Ocean (other guides here and here).

I was happy since I could now send emails via CLI/code, set up free SSL certs, add second domain email to G Suite and Secure G Suite. No more usage limit errors either.

Self-managing servers require more work but it is more rewarding (flexible, faster and cheaper). Page load times were now near 20 seconds (10-second improvement).

Latency Issue

Over 6 months, performance on Digital Ocean (in Singapore) from Australia started to drop (mentioned here). I tried upgrading the memory but that did not help (latency was king).

Moved the website to Australia

I moved my domain to Vultr in Australia (guide here and here). All was good for a year until traffic growth started to increase.

I tried upgrading the memory on Vultr and I setup PHP child workers, set up Cloudflare.

GT Metrix scores were about a “B” and Google Page Speed Scores were in the lower 40’s. Page loads were about 14 seconds (5-second improvement).

Tweaking WordPress

I set up an image compression plugin in WordPress then set up a cloud image compression and CDN Plugin from the same vendor. Page Speed info here.

GT Metrix scores were now occasionally an “A” and Page Speed scores were in the lower 20’s. Page loads were about 3-5 seconds (10-second improvement).

A mixed bag from Vultr (more optimisation and performance improvements were needed).

Google Chrome Developer Console Audit Results on Vultr hosted website were not very good (I stopped checking as nothing helped).

The problem was the Vultr server (400km away in Sydney) was offline (my issue) and everything above (adding more memory, adding 2x CDN’s (EWWW and Cloudflare), adding PHP Child workers etc) did not seem to help???

Enter UpCloud…

Recently, a friend sent a link to a blog article about a host called “UpCloud” who promised “Faster than SSD” performance. This can’t be right: “Faster than SSD”? I was intrigued. I wanted to check it out as I thought nothing was faster than SSD (well, maybe RAM).

I signed up for a trial and ran a disk IO test (read the review here) and I was shocked. It’s fast. Very fast.

Summary: UpCloud was twice as fast (Disk IO and CPU) as Vultr (+ an optional $4/m firewall and $3/m for 1x backup).

fyi: Labels above are K Bytes per second. iozone loops through all file size from 4 KB to 16,348 KB and measures through the reads per second. To be honest, the meaning of the numbers doesn’t interest me, I just want to compare apples to apples.

(image snip from http://www.iozone.org/ which explains the numbers)

I might have to copy my website on UpCloud and see how fast it is.

Where to Deploy and Pricing

UpCloud Pricing: https://www.upcloud.com/pricing/

UpCloud does not have a data centre in Australia yet so why choose UpCloud?

Most of my site’s visitors are based in the US and UpCloud have disk IO twice as fast as Vultr (win-win?). I could deploy to Chicago?

My site’s traffic is growing and I need to ensure the site is fast enough in the future.

Creating an UpCloud VM

I used a friend’s referral code and signed up to create my first VM.

FYI: use my Referral code and get $25 free credit. Sign up only takes 2 minutes.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

When you click the link above you will receive 25$ to try out serves for 3 days. You can exit his trail and deposit $10 into UpCloud.

Trial Limitations

The trial mode restrictions are as following:

* Cloud servers can only be accessed using SSH, RDP, HTTP or HTTPS protocols
* Cloud servers are not allowed to send outgoing e-mails or to create outbound SSH/RDP connections
* The internet connection is restricted to 100 Mbps (compared to 500 Mbps for non-trial accounts)
* After your 72 hours free trial, your services will be deleted unless you make a one-time deposit of $10

UpCloud Links

The UpCloud support page is located here: https://www.upcloud.com/support/

More UpCloud links to read:

Signing up to UpCloud

Navigate to https://upcloud.com/signup and add your username, password and email address and click signup.

Add your address and payment details and click proceed (you don’t need to pay anything ($1 may be charged and instantly refunded to verify the card)

That’s it, check yout email.

Look for the UpCloud email and click https://my.upcloud.com/

Now login

Now I can see a dashboard 🙂

I was happy to see 24/7 support is available.

I opted in for the new dashboard

Deploy My First UpCloud Server

This is how I deployed a server.

Note: If you are going to deploy a server consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

Under the “deploy a server” widget I named the server and chose a location (I think I was supposed to use an FQDN name -e.g., “fearby.com”). The deployment worked though. I clicked continue, then more options were made available:

Enter a short server description.
Choose a location (Frankfurt, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Singapore, London and Chicago)
Choose the number of CPU’s and amount of memory
Specify disk number/names and type (MaxIOPS or HDD).
Choose an Operating System
Select a Timezone
Define SSH Keys for access
Allowed login methods
Choose hardware adapter types
Where the send the login password

FYI: How to generate a new SSH Key (on OSX or Ubuntu)

ssh-keygen -t rsa

Output

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa): /temp/example_rsa
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): *********************************
Enter same passphrase again:*********************************
Your identification has been saved in /temp/example_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /temp/example_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:########################### user@sever
Outputted public and private key

Did the key export? (yes)

> /temp# ls /temp/ -al
> drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 9 15:33 .
> drwxr-xr-x 27 root root 4096 Jun 8 14:25 ..
> -rw——- 1 user user 1766 Jun 9 15:33 example_rsa
> -rw-r–r– 1 user user 396 Jun 9 15:33 example_rsa.pub

“example_rsa” is the private key and “example_rsa.pub “is the public key.

The public key needs to be added to the server to allow access.
The private key needs to be added to any local ssh program used for remote access.

Initialisation script (after deployment)

I was pleased to see an initialization script section that calls actions after the server is deployed. I configured the initialisation script to pull down a few GB of backups from my Vultr website in Sydney (files now removed).

This was my Initialisation script:

#!/bin/bash
echo "Downloading the Vultr websites backups"
mkdir /backup
cd /backup
wget -o www-mysql-backup.sql https://fearby.com/.../www-mysql-backup.sql
wget -o www-blog-backup.zip https://fearby.com/.../www-blog-backup.zip

Confirm and Deploy

I clicked “Confirm and deploy” but I had an alert that said trial mode can only deploy servers up to 1024MB of memory.

Exiting UpCloud Trial Mode

I opened the dashboard and clicked My Account then Billing, I could see the $25 referral credit but I guess I can’t use that in Trial.

I exited trial mode by depositing $10 (USD).

Make a manual 1-time deposit of $10 to exit trial mode.

FYI: Server prices are listed below (or view prices here).

Now I can go back and deploy the server with the same settings above (1x CPU, 2GB Memory, Ubuntu 18.04, MaxIOPS Storage etc)

Deployment takes a few minutes and depending on how you specified a password may be emailed to you.

UpCloud Server Deployed

The server is now deployed; now I can connect to it with my SSH program (vSSH). Simply add the server’s IP, username, password and the SSH private key (generated above) to your ssh program of choice.

fyi: The public key contents start with “ssh-rsa”.

I noticed that the initialisation script downloaded my 2+GB of files already. Nice.

UpCloud Billing Breakdown

I can now see on the UpCloud billing page in my dashboard that credit is deducted daily (68c); at this rate, I have 49 days credit left?

I can manually deposit funds or set up automatic payments at any time 🙂

UpCloud Backup Options

You do not need to setup backups but in case you want to roll back (if things stuff up), it is a good idea. Backups are an additional charge.

I have set up automatic daily backups with an auto deletion after 2 days

To view backup scheduled click on your deployed server then click backup

Note: Backups are charged at $0.056 for every GB stored – so $5.60 for every 100GB per month (half that for 50GB etc)

You can take manual backups at any time (and only be charged for the hour)

UpCloud Firewall Options

I set up a firewall at UpCloud to only allow the minimum number of ports (UpCloud DNS, HTTP, HTTPS and My IP to port 22). The firewall feature is charged at $0.0056 an hour ($4.03 a month)

I love the ability to set firewall rules on incoming, destination and outgoing ports.

To view your firewall click on your deployed server then click firewall

Update: I modified my firewall to allow inbound ICMP (IPv4/IPv6) and UDP (IPv4/IPv6) packets.

(Note: Old firewall screenshot)

Because my internet provider has a dynamic IP, I set up a VPN with a static IP and whitelisted it for backdoor access.

Local Ubuntu ufw Firewall

I duplicated the rules in my local ufw (2nd level) firewall (and blocked mail)

sudo ufw status numbered
Status: active

     To                         Action      From
     --                         ------      ----
[ 1] 80                         ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 2] 443                        ALLOW IN    Anywhere
[ 3] 25                         DENY OUT    Anywhere                   (out)
[ 4] 53                         ALLOW IN    93.237.127.9
[ 5] 53                         ALLOW IN    93.237.40.9
[ 6] 22                         ALLOW IN    REMOVED (MY WHITELISTED IP))
[ 7] 80 (v6)                    ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)
[ 8] 443 (v6)                   ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)
[ 9] 25 (v6)                    DENY OUT    Anywhere (v6)              (out)
[10] 53                         ALLOW IN    2a04:3540:53::1
[11] 53                         ALLOW IN    2a04:3544:53::1

UpCloud Download Speeds

I pulled down a 1.8GB Ubuntu 18.08 Desktop ISO 3 times from gigenet.com and the file downloaded in 32 seconds (57MB/sec). Nice.

$/temp# wget http://mirrors.gigenet.com/ubuntu/18.04/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso
--2018-06-08 18:02:04-- http://mirrors.gigenet.com/ubuntu/18.04/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso
Resolving mirrors.gigenet.com (mirrors.gigenet.com)... 69.65.15.34
Connecting to mirrors.gigenet.com (mirrors.gigenet.com)|69.65.15.34|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1921843200 (1.8G) [application/x-iso9660-image]
Saving to: 'ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso'

ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso 100%[==================================================================>] 1.79G 57.0MB/s in 32s

2018-06-08 18:02:37 (56.6 MB/s) - 'ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso' saved [1921843200/1921843200]

$/temp# wget http://mirrors.gigenet.com/ubuntu/18.04/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso
--2018-06-08 18:02:46-- http://mirrors.gigenet.com/ubuntu/18.04/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso
Resolving mirrors.gigenet.com (mirrors.gigenet.com)... 69.65.15.34
Connecting to mirrors.gigenet.com (mirrors.gigenet.com)|69.65.15.34|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1921843200 (1.8G) [application/x-iso9660-image]
Saving to: 'ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso.1'

ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso.1 100%[==================================================================>] 1.79G 57.0MB/s in 32s

2018-06-08 18:03:19 (56.6 MB/s) - 'ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso.1' saved [1921843200/1921843200]

$/temp# wget http://mirrors.gigenet.com/ubuntu/18.04/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso
--2018-06-08 18:03:23-- http://mirrors.gigenet.com/ubuntu/18.04/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso
Resolving mirrors.gigenet.com (mirrors.gigenet.com)... 69.65.15.34
Connecting to mirrors.gigenet.com (mirrors.gigenet.com)|69.65.15.34|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1921843200 (1.8G) [application/x-iso9660-image]
Saving to: 'ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso.2'

ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso.2 100%[==================================================================>] 1.79G 57.0MB/s in 32s

2018-06-08 18:03:56 (56.8 MB/s) - 'ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso.2' saved [1921843200/1921843200]

Install Common Ubuntu Packages

I installed common Ubuntu packages.

apt-get install zip htop ifstat iftop bmon tcptrack ethstatus speedometer iozone3 bonnie++ sysbench siege tree tree unzip jq jq ncdu pydf ntp rcconf ufw iperf nmap iozone3

Timezone

I checked the server’s time (I thought this was auto set before I deployed)?

$hwclock --show
2018-06-06 23:52:53.639378+0000

I reset the time to Australia/Sydney.

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
Current default time zone: 'Australia/Sydney'
Local time is now: Thu Jun 7 06:53:20 AEST 2018.
Universal Time is now: Wed Jun 6 20:53:20 UTC 2018.

Now the timezone is set 🙂

Shell History

I increased the shell history.

HISTSIZEH =10000
HISTCONTROL=ignoredups

SSH Login

I created a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file and added my SSH public key to allow password-less logins.

mkdir ~/.ssh
sudo nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

I added my pubic ssh key, then exited the ssh session and logged back in. I can now log in without a password.

Install NGINX

apt-get install nginx

nginx/1.14.0 is now installed.

A quick GT Metrix test.

Install MySQL

Run these commands to install and secure MySQL.

apt install mysql-server
mysql_secure_installation

Securing the MySQL server deployment.
> Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD plugin?: n
> New password: **********************************************
> Re-enter new password: **********************************************
> Remove anonymous users? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Disallow root login remotely? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Remove test database and access to it? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Reload privilege tables now? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Success.

I disabled the validate password plugin because I hate it.

MySQL Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.22 is now installed.

Set MySQL root login password type

Set MySQL root user to authenticate via “mysql_native_password”. Run the “mysql” command.

mysql
SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user | authentication_string | plugin | host |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root | | auth_socket | localhost |
| mysql.session | hiddden | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys | hiddden | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | hiddden | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+----------

Now let’s set the root password authentication method to “mysql_native_password”

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY '*****************************************';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Check authentication method.

mysql> SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user | authentication_string | plugin | host |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root | ######################################### | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.session | hiddden | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys | hiddden | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | hiddden | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+

Now we need to flush permissions.

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Done.

Install PHP

Install PHP 7.2

apt-get install software-properties-common
add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
apt-get update
apt-get install -y php7.2
php -v

PHP 7.2.5, Zend Engine v3.2.0 with Zend OPcache v7.2.5-1 is now installed. Do update PHP frequently.

I made the following changes in /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

> cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
> max_input_vars = 1000
> memory_limit = 1024M
> max_file_uploads = 20M
> post_max_size = 20M

Install PHP Modules

sudo apt-get install php-pear php7.2-curl php7.2-dev php7.2-mbstring php7.2-zip php7.2-mysql php7.2-xml

Install PHP FPM

apt-get install php7.2-fpm

Configure PHP FPM config.

Edit /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

> cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
> max_input_vars = 1000
> memory_limit = 1024M
> max_file_uploads = 20M
> post_max_size = 20M

Reload php sudo service.

php7.2-fpm restart service php7.2-fpm status

Install PHP Modules

sudo apt-get install php-pear php7.2-curl php7.2-dev php7.2-mbstring php7.2-zip php7.2-mysql php7.2-xml

Configuring NGINX

If you are not comfortable editing NGINX config files read here, here and here.

I made a new “www root” folder, set permissions and created a default html file.

mkdir /www-root
chown -R www-data:www-data /www-root
echo "Hello World" >> /www-root/index.html

I edited the “root” key in “/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default” file and set the root a new location (e.g., “/www-root”)

I added these performance tweaks to /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

> worker_cpu_affinity auto;
> worker_rlimit_nofile 100000

I add the following lines to “http {” section in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

client_max_body_size 10M;

gzip on;
gzip_disable "msie6";
gzip_comp_level 5;
gzip_min_length 256;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_types
application/atom+xml
application/ld+json
application/manifest+json
application/rss+xml
application/vnd.geo+json
application/vnd.ms-fontobject
application/x-font-ttf
application/x-web-app-manifest+json
application/xhtml+xml
font/opentype
image/bmp
image/x-icon
text/cache-manifest
text/vcard
text/vnd.rim.location.xloc
text/vtt
text/x-component
text/x-cross-domain-policy;
#text/html is always compressed by gzip module

gzip_proxied any;
gzip_buffers 16 8k;
gzip_http_version 1.1;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss te$

Check NGINX Status

service nginx status
* nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-06-07 21:16:28 AEST; 30min ago
Docs: man:nginx(8)
Main PID: # (nginx)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 2322)
CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
|- # nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;
`- # nginx: worker process

Install Open SSL that supports TLS 1.3

This is a work in progress. The steps work just fine for me on Ubuntu 16.04. but not Ubuntu 18.04.?

Installing Adminer MySQL GUI

I will use the PHP based Adminer MySQL GUI to export and import my blog from one server to another. All I needed to do is install it on both servers (simple 1 file download)

cd /utils
wget -o adminer.php https://github.com/vrana/adminer/releases/download/v4.6.2/adminer-4.6.2-mysql-en.php

Use Adminer to Export My Blog (on Vultr)

On the original server open Adminer (http) and..

Login with the MySQL root account
Open your database
Choose “Save” as the output
Click on Export

Save the “.sql” file.

I used Adminer on the UpCloud server to Import My Blog

FYI: Depending on the size of your database backup you may need to temporarily increase your upload and post sizes limits in PHP and NGINX before you can import your database.

Edit /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini
> max_file_uploads = 100M
> post_max_size =100M

And Edit: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
> client_max_body_size 100M;

Don’t forget to reload NGINX config and restart NGINX and PHP. Take note of the maximum allowed file size in the screenshot below. I temporarily increased my upload limits to 100MB in order to restore my 87MB blog.

Now I could open Adminer on my UpCloud server.

Create a new database
Click on the database and click Import
Choose the SQL file
Click Execute to import it

Don’t forget to create a user and assign permissions (as required – check your wp-config.php file).

Tip: Don’t forget to lower the maximum upload file size and max post size after you import your database,

Cloudflare DNS

I use Cloudflare to manage DNS, so I need to tell it about my new server.

You can get your server’s IP details from the UpCloud dashboard.

At Cloudflare update your DNS details to point to the server’s new IPv4 (“A Record”) and IPv6 (“AAAA Record”).

Domain Error

I waited an hour and my website was suddenly unavailable. At first, I thought this was Cloudflare forcing the redirection of my domain to HTTP (that was not yet set up).

I chatted with UpCloud chat on their webpage and they kindly assisted me to diagnose all the common issues like DNS values, DNS replication, Cloudflare settings and the error was pinpointed to my NGINX installation. All NGINX config settings were ok from what we could see? I uninstalled NGINX and reinstalled it (and that fixed it). Thanks UpCloud Support 🙂

Reinstalled NGINX

sudo apt-get purge nginx nginx-common

I reinstalled NGINX and reconfigured /etc/nginx/nginx.conf (I downloaded my SSL cert from my old server just in case).

Here is my /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file.

user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
worker_cpu_affinity auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
include /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/*.conf;
error_log /var/log/nginx/www-nginxcriterror.log crit;

events {
        worker_connections 768;
        multi_accept on;
}

http {

        client_max_body_size 10M;
        sendfile on;
        tcp_nopush on;
        tcp_nodelay on;
        keepalive_timeout 65;
        types_hash_max_size 2048;
        server_tokens off;

        server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
        server_name_in_redirect off;

        include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
        default_type application/octet-stream;

        ssl_protocols TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

        access_log /var/log/nginx/www-access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/www-error.log;

        gzip on;

        gzip_vary on;
        gzip_disable "msie6";
        gzip_min_length 256;
        gzip_proxied any;
        gzip_comp_level 6;
        gzip_buffers 16 8k;
        gzip_http_version 1.1;
        gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

        include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
        include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

Here is my /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file (fyi, I have not fully re-setup TLS 1.3 yet so I commented out the settings)

proxy_cache_path /tmp/nginx-cache keys_zone=one:10m;#
server {
        root /www-root;

        # Listen Ports
        listen 80 default_server http2;
        listen [::]:80 default_server http2;
        listen 443 ssl default_server http2;
        listen [::]:443 ssl default_server http2;

        # Default File
        index index.html index.php index.htm;

        # Server Name
        server_name www.fearby.com fearby.com localhost;

        # HTTPS Cert
        ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl-cert-path/fearby.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl-cert-path/fearby.key;
        ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/ssl-cert-path/dhparams4096.pem;

        # HTTPS Ciphers
        
        # TLS 1.2
        ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
        ssl_ciphers "EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH";

        # TLS 1.3			#todo
        # ssl_ciphers 
        # ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DES-CBC3-SHA;
        # ssl_ecdh_curve secp384r1;

        # Force HTTPS
        if ($scheme != "https") {
                return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
        }

        # HTTPS Settings
        server_tokens off;
        ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
        ssl_session_timeout 30m;
        ssl_session_tickets off;
        add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains; preload";
        add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;
        add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
        add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
	#ssl_stapling on; 						# Requires nginx >= 1.3.7

        # Cloudflare DNS
        resolver 1.1.1.1 1.0.0.1 valid=60s;
        resolver_timeout 1m;

        # PHP Memory 
        fastcgi_param PHP_VALUE "memory_limit = 1024M";

	# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
        location ~ .php$ {
            try_files $uri =404;
            # include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+.php)(/.+)$;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            include fastcgi_params;
            fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;

            # NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini
            # fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
	    }

        location / {
            # try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
            try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
            index index.php index.html index.htm;
            proxy_set_header Proxy "";
        }

        # Deny Rules
        location ~ /.ht {
                deny all;
        }
        location ~ ^/.user.ini {
            deny all;
        }
        location ~ (.ini) {
            return 403;
        }

        # Headers
        location ~* .(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png|js)$ {
            expires 30d;
            add_header Pragma public;
            add_header Cache-Control "public";
        }

}

SSL Labs SSL Certificate Check

All good thanks to the config above.

Install WP-CLI

I don’t like setting up FTP to auto-update WordPress plugins. I use the WP-CLI tool to manage WordPress installations by the command line. Read my blog here on using WP-CLI.

Download WP-CLI

mkdir /utils
cd /utils
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar

Move WP-CLI to the bin folder as “wp”

chmod +x wp-cli.phar
sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp

Test wp

wp --info
OS: Linux 4.15.0-22-generic #24-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 16 12:15:17 UTC 2018 x86_64
Shell: /bin/bash
PHP binary: /usr/bin/php7.2
PHP version: 7.2.5-1+ubuntu18.04.1+deb.sury.org+1
php.ini used: /etc/php/7.2/cli/php.ini
WP-CLI root dir: phar://wp-cli.phar
WP-CLI vendor dir: phar://wp-cli.phar/vendor
WP_CLI phar path: /www-root
WP-CLI packages dir:
WP-CLI global config:
WP-CLI project config:
WP-CLI version: 1.5.1

Update WordPress Plugins

Now I can run “wp plugin update” to update all WordPress plugins

wp plugin update
Enabling Maintenance mode...
Downloading update from https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wordfence.7.1.7.zip...
Unpacking the update...
Installing the latest version...
Removing the old version of the plugin...
Plugin updated successfully.
Downloading update from https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wp-meta-seo.3.7.1.zip...
Unpacking the update...
Installing the latest version...
Removing the old version of the plugin...
Plugin updated successfully.
Downloading update from https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wordpress-seo.7.6.1.zip...
Unpacking the update...
Installing the latest version...
Removing the old version of the plugin...
Plugin updated successfully.
Disabling Maintenance mode...
Success: Updated 3 of 3 plugins.
+---------------+-------------+-------------+---------+
| name | old_version | new_version | status |
+---------------+-------------+-------------+---------+
| wordfence | 7.1.6 | 7.1.7 | Updated |
| wp-meta-seo | 3.7.0 | 3.7.1 | Updated |
| wordpress-seo | 7.5.3 | 7.6.1 | Updated |
+---------------+-------------+-------------+---------+

Update WordPress Core

WordPress core file can be updated with “wp core update“

wp core update
Success: WordPress is up to date.

Troubleshooting: Use the flag “–allow-root “if wp needs higher access (unsafe action though).

Install PHP Child Workers

I edited the following file to setup PHP child workers /etc/php/7.2/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Changes

> pm = dynamic
> pm.max_children = 40
> pm.start_servers = 15
> pm.min_spare_servers = 5
> pm.max_spare_servers = 15
> pm.process_idle_timeout = 30s;
> pm.max_requests = 500;
> php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/www-fpm-php.www.log
> php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 512M

Restart PHP

sudo service php7.2-fpm restart

Test NGINX config, reload NGINX config and restart NGINX

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

Output (14 workers are ready)

Check PHP Child Worker Status

sudo service php7.2-fpm status
* php7.2-fpm.service - The PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process Manager
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.2-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-06-07 19:32:47 AEST; 20s ago
Docs: man:php-fpm7.2(8)
Main PID: # (php-fpm7.2)
Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 15, Requests: 2, slow: 0, Traffic: 0.1req/sec"
Tasks: 16 (limit: 2322)
CGroup: /system.slice/php7.2-fpm.service
|- # php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.2/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
|- # php-fpm: pool www
- # php-fpm: pool www

Memory Tweak (set at your own risk)

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

vm.swappiness = 1

Setting swappiness to a value of 1 all but disables the swap file and tells the Operating System to aggressively use ram, a value of 10 is safer. Only set this if you have enough memory available (and free).

Possible swappiness settings:

> vm.swappiness = 0 Swap is disabled. In earlier versions, this meant that the kernel would swap only to avoid an out of memory condition when free memory will be below vm.min_free_kbytes limit, but in later versions, this is achieved by setting to 1.[2]> vm.swappiness = 1 Kernel version 3.5 and over, as well as Red Hat kernel version 2.6.32-303 and over: Minimum amount of swapping without disabling it entirely.
> vm.swappiness = 10 This value is sometimes recommended to improve performance when sufficient memory exists in a system.[3]
> vm.swappiness = 60 The default value.
> vm.swappiness = 100 The kernel will swap aggressively.

The “htop” tool is a handy memory monitoring tool to “top”

Also, you can use good old “watch” command to show near-live memory usage (auto-refreshes every 2 seconds)

watch -n 2 free -m

Script to auto-clear the memory/cache

As a habit, I am setting up a cronjob to check when free memory falls below 100MB, then the cache is automatically cleared (freeing memory).

Script Contents: clearcache.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Script help inspired by https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/119126/command-to-display-memory-usage-disk-usage-and-cpu-load
ram_use=$(free -m)
IFS=

I set the cronjob to run every 15 mins, I added this to my cronjob.

SHELL=/bin/bash
*/15  *  *  *  *  root /bin/bash /scripts/clearcache.sh >> /scripts/clearcache.log

Sample log output

2018-06-10 01:13:22 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 981 MB, Free: 387 MB)
2018-06-10 01:15:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 974 MB, Free: 394 MB)
2018-06-10 01:20:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 955 MB, Free: 412 MB)
2018-06-10 01:25:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 1002 MB, Free: 363 MB)
2018-06-10 01:30:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 970 MB, Free: 394 MB)
2018-06-10 01:35:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 963 MB, Free: 400 MB)
2018-06-10 01:40:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 976 MB, Free: 387 MB)
2018-06-10 01:45:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 985 MB, Free: 377 MB)
2018-06-10 01:50:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 983 MB, Free: 379 MB)
2018-06-10 01:55:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 979 MB, Free: 382 MB)
2018-06-10 02:00:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 980 MB, Free: 380 MB)
2018-06-10 02:05:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 971 MB, Free: 389 MB)
2018-06-10 02:10:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 983 MB, Free: 376 MB)
2018-06-10 02:15:01 RAM OK (Total: 1993 MB, Used: 967 MB, Free: 392 MB)

I will check the log (/scripts/clearcache.log) in a few days and view the memory trends.

After 1/2 a day Ubuntu 18.04 is handling memory just fine, no externally triggered cache clears have happened 🙂

I used https://crontab.guru/every-hour to set the right schedule in crontab.

I rebooted the VM.

Update: I now use Nixstats monitoring

Swap File

FYI: Here is a handy guide on viewing swap file usage here. I’m not using swap files so it is only an aside.

After the system rebooted I checked if the swappiness setting was active.

sudo cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
1

Yes, swappiness is set.

File System Tweaks – Write Back Cache (set at your own risk)

First, check your disk name and file system

sudo lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL

Take note of your disk name (e.g vda1)

I used TuneFS to enable writing data to the disk before writing to the journal. tunefs is a great tool for setting file system parameters.

Warning (snip from here): “I set the mode to journal_data_writeback. This basically means that data may be written to the disk before the journal. The data consistency guarantees are the same as the ext3 file system. The downside is that if your system crashes before the journal gets written then you may lose new data — the old data may magically reappear.“

Warning this can corrupt your data. More information here.

I ran this command.

tune2fs -o journal_data_writeback /dev/vda1

I edited my fstab to append the “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags for my volume after a reboot.

Edit FS Tab:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

I added “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags to my disk options.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options> <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/vda1 during installation
#                <device>                 <dir>           <fs>    <options>                                             <dump>  <fsck>
UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /               ext4    errors=remount-ro,data=writeback,noatime,nodiratime   0       1

Updating Ubuntu Packages

Show updatable packages.

apt-get -s dist-upgrade | grep "^Inst"

Update Packages.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Unattended Security Updates

Read more on Ubuntu 18.04 Unattended upgrades here, here and here.

Install Unattended Upgrades

sudo apt-get install unattended-upgrades

Enable Unattended Upgrades.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low unattended-upgrades

Now I configure what packages not to auto-update.

Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Find “Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist” and add packages that you don’t want automatically updated, you may want to manually update these (and monitor updates).

I prefer not to auto-update critical system apps (I will do this myself).

Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist {
"nginx";
"nginx-common";
"nginx-core";
"php7.2";
"php7.2-fpm";
"mysql-server";
"mysql-server-5.7";
"mysql-server-core-5.7";
"libssl1.0.0";
"libssl1.1";
};

FYI: You can find installed packages by running this command:

apt list --installed

Enable automatic updates by editing /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

Edit the number at the end (the number is how many days to wait before updating) of each line.

> APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists “1”;
> APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages “1”;
> APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval “7”;
> APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade “1”;

Set to “0” to disable automatic updates.

The results of unattended-upgrades will be logged to /var/log/unattended-upgrades

Update packages now.

unattended-upgrade -d

Almost done.

I Rebooted

GT Metrix Score

I almost fell off my chair. It’s an amazing feeling hitting refresh in GT Metrix and getting sub-2-second score consistently (and that is with 17 assets loading and 361KB of HTML content)

WebPageTest.org Test Score

Nice. I am not sure why the effective use of CDN has an X rating as I have the EWWW CDN and Cloudflare. First Byte time is now a respectable “B”, This was always bad.

Update: I found out the longer you set cache delays in Cloudflare the higher the score.

GT Metrix has a nice historical breakdown of load times (night and day).

Google Page Speed Insight Desktop Score

I benchmarked with https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

This will help with future SEO rankings. It is well known that Google is pushing fast servers.

Google Chrome 70 Dev Console Audit (Desktop)

This is amazing, I never expected to get this high score. I know Google like (and are pushing) sub-1-second scores.

My site is loading so well it is time I restored some old features that were too slow on other servers

I disabled Lazy loading of images (this was not working on some Android devices)
I re-added the News Widget and news images.

GTMetrix and WebpageTest sores are still good (even after adding bloat)

My WordPress site is not really that small either

FYI: WordPress Plugins I use.

These are the plugins I use.

Autoptimize – Optimises your website, concatenating the CSS and JavaScript code, and compressing it.
BJ Lazy Load (Now Disabled) – Lazy image loading makes your site load faster and saves bandwidth.
Cloudflare – Cloudflare speeds up and protects your WordPress site.
Contact Form 7 – Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.
Contact Form 7 Honeypot – Add honeypot anti-spam functionality to the popular Contact Form 7 plugin.
Crayon Syntax Highlighter – Supports multiple languages, themes, highlighting from a URL, local file or post text.
Democracy Poll – Allows creating democratic polls. Visitors can vote for more than one answer & add their own answers.
Display Posts Shortcode – Display a listing of posts using the
- Trimming 16GB memory usage in Windows 11
- Buying and building a computer in July 2023 (Australia)
- Using a 12-year-old dual Xeon server setup as a desktop PC (updated Video Card)
- Manually update OpenSSL on Debian to 1.1.1.t
- HomePi – Raspberry PI powered touch screen showing information from house-wide sensors
- Wemos Mini D1 Pro Pinout Guide
- Yubico Security Key NFC
- Moving Oracle Virtual Box Virtual Machines to another disk
- Installing Windows 11 in a Virtual Machine on Windows 10 to test software compatibility
- Diagnosing a Windows 10 PC that will not post
shortcode
EWWW Image Optimizer – Reduce file sizes for images within WordPress including NextGEN Gallery and GRAND FlAGallery. Uses jpegtran, optipng/pngout, and gifsicle.
GDPR Cookie Consent – A simple way to show that your website complies with the EU Cookie Law / GDPR.
GTmetrix for WordPress – GTmetrix can help you develop a faster, more efficient, and all-around improved website experience for your users. Your users will love you for it.
TinyMCE Advanced – Enables advanced features and plugins in TinyMCE, the visual editor in WordPress.
Wordfence Security – Anti-virus, Firewall and Malware Scan
WP Meta SEO – WP Meta SEO is a plugin for WordPress to fill meta for content, images and main SEO info in a single view.
WP Performance Score Booster – Speed-up page load times and improve website scores in services like PageSpeed, YSlow, Pingdom and GTmetrix.
WP SEO HTML Sitemap – A responsive HTML sitemap that uses all of the settings for your XML sitemap in the WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin.
WP-Optimize – WP-Optimize is WordPress’s #1 most installed optimisation plugin. With it, you can clean up your database easily and safely, without manual queries.
WP News and Scrolling Widgets Pro – WP News Pro plugin with six different types of shortcode and seven different types of widgets. Display News posts with various designs.
Yoast SEO – The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.
YouTube – YouTube Embed and YouTube Gallery WordPress Plugin. Embed a responsive video, YouTube channel, playlist gallery, or live stream

How I use these plugins to speed up my site.

I use EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to auto-compress my images and to provide a CDN for media asset deliver (pre-Cloudflare). Learn more about ExactDN and EWWW.io here.
I use Autoptimize plugin to optimise HTML/CSS/JS and ensure select assets are on my EWWW CDN. This plugin also removes WordPress Emojis, removed the use of Google Fonts, allows you to define pre-configured domains, Async Javascript-files etc.
I use BJ Lazy Load to prevent all images in a post from loading on load (and only as the user scrolls down the page).
GTmetrix for WordPress and Cloudflare plugins are for information only?
I use WP-Optimize to ensure my database is healthy and to disable comments/trackbacks and pingbacks.

Let’s Test UpCloud’s Disk IO in Chicago

Looks good to me, Read IO is a little bit lower than UpCloud’s Singapore data centre but still, it’s faster than Vultr. I can’t wait for more data centres to become available around the world.

Why is UpCloud Disk IO so good?

I asked UpCloud on Twitter why the Disk IO was so good.

“MaxIOPS is UpCloud’s proprietary block-storage technology. MaxIOPS is physically redundant storage technology where all customer’s data is located in two separate physical devices at all times. UpCloud uses InfiniBand (!) network to connect storage backends to compute nodes, where customers’ cloud servers are running. All disks are enterprise-grade SSD’s. And using separate storage backends, it allows us to live migrate our customers’ cloud servers freely inside our infrastructure between compute nodes – whether it be due to hardware malfunction (compute node) or backend software updates (example CPU vulnerability and immediate patching).“

My Answers to Questions to support

Q1) What’s the difference between backups and snapshots (a Twitter user said Snapshots were a thing)

A1) Backups and snapshots are the same things with our infrastructure.

Q2) What are charges for backup of a 50GB drive?

A2) We charge $0.06 / GB of the disk being captured. But capture the whole disk, not just what was used. So for a 50GB drive, we charge $0.06 * 50 = $3/month. Even if 1GB were only used.

Support confirmed that each backup is charged (so 5 times manual backups are charged 5 times). Setting up a daily auto backup schedule for 2 weeks would create 14 billable backup charges.
I guess a 25GB server will be $1.50 a month

Q3) What are data charges if I go over my 2TB quota?

A3) Outgoing data charges are $0.056/GB after the pre-configured allowance.

Q4) What happens if my balance hits $0?

A4) You will get notification of low account balance 2 weeks in advance based on your current daily spend. When your balance reaches zero, your servers will be shut down. But they will still be charged for. You can automatically top-up if you want to assign a payment type from your Control Panel. You deposit into your balance when you want. We use a prepaid model of payment, so you need to top up before using, not billing you after usage. We give you lots of chances to top-up.

Support Tips

One thing to note, when deleting servers (CPU, RAM) instances, you get the option to delete the storages separately via a pop-up window. Choose to delete permanently to delete the disk, to save credit. Any disk storage lying around even unattached to servers will be billed.
Charges are in USD.

I think it’s time to delete my domain from Vultr in Sydney.

Deleted my Vultr domain

I deleted my Vultr domain.

Done.

More Reading on UpCloud

https://www.upcloud.com/documentation/faq/

UpCloud Server Status

http://status.upcloud.com

Check out my new guide on Nixstats for awesome monitoring

What I would like

Ability to name individual manual backups (tag with why I backed up).
Ability to push user-defined data from my VM to the dashboard
Cheaper scheduled backups
Sydney data centres (one day)

Update: Post UpCloud Launch Tweaks (Awesome)

I had a look at https://www.webpagetest.org/ results to see where else I can optimise webpage delivery.

Disable dasjhicons.min.css (for unauthenticated WordPress users).

Find functions.php in the www root

sudo find . -print |grep  functions.php

Edit functions.php

sudo nano ./wp-includes/functions.php

Add the following

// Remove dashicons in frontend for unauthenticated users
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'bs_dequeue_dashicons' );
function bs_dequeue_dashicons() {
    if ( ! is_user_logged_in() ) {
        wp_deregister_style( 'dashicons' );
    }
}

HTTP2 Push

I added http2 to my listening servers

server {
        root /www;

        ...
        listen 80 default_server http2;
        listen [::]:80 default_server http2;
        listen 443 ssl default_server http2;
        listen [::]:443 ssl default_server http2;
        ...

I tested a http2 push page by defining this in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

location = /http2/push_demo.html {
        http2_push /http2/pushed.css;
        http2_push /http2/pushedimage1.jpg;
        http2_push /http2/pushedimage2.jpg;
        http2_push /http2/pushedimage3.jpg;
}

Once I tested that push (demo here) was working I then defined two files to push that were being sent from my server

location / {
        ...
        http2_push /https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js;
        http2_push /wp-content/themes/news-pro/images/favicon.ico;
        ...
}

I used the WordPress Plugin Autoptimize to remove Google font usage (this removed a number of files being loaded when my page loads).

I used the WordPress Plugin WP-Optimize plugin into to remove comments and disable pingbacks and trackbacks.

WordPress wp-config.php tweaks

# Memory
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT','1024M');
define('WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT','1024M');
set_time_limit (60);

# Security
define( 'FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);

# Disable Updates
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );
define( 'AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', true );

# ewww.io
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );

Add 2FA Authentication to server logins.

I recently checked out YubiCo YubiKeys and I have secured my Linux servers with 2FA prompts at login. Read the guide here. I secured my WordPress too.

Tweaks Todo

Compress placeholder BJ Lazy Load Image (plugin is broken)
Solve 2x Google Analytics tracker redirects (done, switched to Matomo)

Conclusion

I love UpCloud’s fast servers, give them a go (use my link and get $25 free credit).

I love Cloudflare for providing a fast CDN.

I love ewww.io’s automatic Image Compression and Resizing plugin that automatically handles image optimisations and pre Cloudflare/first hit CDN caching.

Read my post about server monitoring with Nixstats here.

Let the results speak for themselves (sub <1 second load times).

I hope this guide helps someone.

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

2020 Update. I have stopped using Putty and WinSCP. I now use MobaXterm (a tabbed SSH client for Windows) as it is way faster than WinSCP and better than Putty. Read my review post of MobaXTerm here.

Ask a question or recommend an article

[contact-form-7 id=”30″ title=”Ask a Question”]

Revision History

v2.1 Newer GTMetrix scores

v2.0 New UpCloud UI Update and links to new guides.

v1.9 Spelling and grammar

v1.8 Trial mode gotcha (deposit money ASAP)

v1.7 Added RSA Private key info

v1.7 – Added new firewall rules info.

v1.6 – Added more bloat to the site, still good.

v1.5 Improving Accessibility

v1.4 Added Firewall Price

v1.3 Added wp-config and plugin usage descriptions.

v1.2 Added GTMetrix historical chart.

v1.1 Fixed free typos and added final conclusion images.

v1.0 Added final results

v0.9 added more tweaks (http2 push, removing unwanted files etc)

v0.81 Draft – Added memory usage chart and added MaxIOPS info from UpCloud.

v0.8 Draft post.

n' read -rd '' -a ram_use_arr <<< "$ram_use" ram_use="${ram_use_arr[1]}" ram_use=$(echo "$ram_use" | tr -s " ") IFS=' ' read -ra ram_use_arr <<< "$ram_use" ram_total="${ram_use_arr[1]}" ram_used="${ram_use_arr[2]}" ram_free="${ram_use_arr[3]}" d=`date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` if ! [[ "$ram_free" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then echo "Sorry ram_free is not an integer" else if [ "$ram_free" -lt "100" ]; then echo "$d RAM LOW (Total: $ram_total MB, Used: $ram_used MB, Free: $ram_free MB) - Clearing Cache..." sync; echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches sync; echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches #sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches #Not advised in production # Read for more info https://www.tecmint.com/clear-ram-memory-cache-buffer-and-swap-space-on-linux/ exit 1 else if [ "$ram_free" -lt "256" ]; then echo "$d RAM ALMOST LOW (Total: $ram_total MB, Used: $ram_used MB, Free: $ram_free MB)" exit 1 else if [ "$ram_free" -lt "512" ]; then echo "$d RAM OK (Total: $ram_total MB, Used: $ram_used MB, Free: $ram_free MB)" exit 1 else echo "$d RAM LOW (Total: $ram_total MB, Used: $ram_used MB, Free: $ram_free MB)" exit 1 fi fi fi fi

I set the cronjob to run every 15 mins, I added this to my cronjob.

Sample log output

I will check the log (/scripts/clearcache.log) in a few days and view the memory trends.

After 1/2 a day Ubuntu 18.04 is handling memory just fine, no externally triggered cache clears have happened 🙂

I used https://crontab.guru/every-hour to set the right schedule in crontab.

I rebooted the VM.

Update: I now use Nixstats monitoring

Swap File

FYI: Here is a handy guide on viewing swap file usage here. I’m not using swap files so it is only an aside.

After the system rebooted I checked if the swappiness setting was active.

Yes, swappiness is set.

File System Tweaks – Write Back Cache (set at your own risk)

First, check your disk name and file system

Take note of your disk name (e.g vda1)

I used TuneFS to enable writing data to the disk before writing to the journal. tunefs is a great tool for setting file system parameters.

Warning (snip from here): “I set the mode to journal_data_writeback. This basically means that data may be written to the disk before the journal. The data consistency guarantees are the same as the ext3 file system. The downside is that if your system crashes before the journal gets written then you may loose new data — the old data may magically reappear.“

Warning this can corrupt your data. More information here.

I ran this command.

I edited my fstab to append the “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags for my volume after a reboot.

Edit FS Tab:

I added “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags to my disk options.

Updating Ubuntu Packages

Show updatable packages.

Update Packages.

Unattended Security Updates

Read more on Ubuntu 18.04 Unattended upgrades here, here and here.

Install Unattended Upgrades

Enable Unattended Upgrades.

Now I configure what packages not to auto update.

Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Find “Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist” and add packages that you don’t want automatically updated, you may want to manually update these (and monitor updates).

I prefer not to auto-update critical system apps (I will do this myself).

FYI: You can find installed packages by running this command:

Enable automatic updates by editing /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

Edit the number at the end (the number is how many days to wait before updating) of each line.

> APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists “1”;
> APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages “1”;
> APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval “7”;
> APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade “1”;

Set to “0” to disable automatic updates.

The results of unattended-upgrades will be logged to /var/log/unattended-upgrades

Update packages now.

Almost done.

I Rebooted

GT Metrix Score

I almost fell off my chair. It’s an amazing feeling hitting refresh in GT Metrix and getting sub-2-second score consistently (and that is with 17 assets loading and 361KB of HTML content)

WebPageTest.org Test Score

Nice. I am not sure why the effective use of CDN has an X rating as I have the EWWW CDN and Cloudflare. First Byte time is now a respectable “B”, This was always bad.

Update: I found out the longer you set cache delays in Cloudflare the higher the score.

GT Metrix has a nice historical breakdown of load times (night and day).

Google Page Speed Insight Desktop Score

I benchmarked with https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

This will help with future SEO rankings. It is well known that Google is pushing fast servers.

Google Chrome 70 Dev Console Audit (Desktop)

This is amazing, I never expected to get this high score. I know Google like (and are pushing) sub-1-second scores.

My site is loading so well it is time I restored some old features that were too slow on other servers

I disabled Lazy loading of images (this was not working on some Android devices)
I re-added the News Widget and news images.

GTMetrix and WebpageTest sores are still good (even after adding bloat)

My WordPress site is not really that small either

FYI: WordPress Plugins I use.

These are the plugins I use.

Autoptimize – Optimises your website, concatenating the CSS and JavaScript code, and compressing it.
BJ Lazy Load (Now Disabled) – Lazy image loading makes your site load faster and saves bandwidth.
Cloudflare – Cloudflare speeds up and protects your WordPress site.
Contact Form 7 – Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.
Contact Form 7 Honeypot – Add honeypot anti-spam functionality to the popular Contact Form 7 plugin.
Crayon Syntax Highlighter – Supports multiple languages, themes, highlighting from a URL, local file or post text.
Democracy Poll – Allows to create democratic polls. Visitors can vote for more than one answer & add their own answers.
Display Posts Shortcode – Display a listing of posts using the
- Trimming 16GB memory usage in Windows 11
- Buying and building a computer in July 2023 (Australia)
- Using a 12-year-old dual Xeon server setup as a desktop PC (updated Video Card)
- Manually update OpenSSL on Debian to 1.1.1.t
- HomePi – Raspberry PI powered touch screen showing information from house-wide sensors
- Wemos Mini D1 Pro Pinout Guide
- Yubico Security Key NFC
- Moving Oracle Virtual Box Virtual Machines to another disk
- Installing Windows 11 in a Virtual Machine on Windows 10 to test software compatibility
- Diagnosing a Windows 10 PC that will not post
shortcode
EWWW Image Optimizer – Reduce file sizes for images within WordPress including NextGEN Gallery and GRAND FlAGallery. Uses jpegtran, optipng/pngout, and gifsicle.
GDPR Cookie Consent – A simple way to show that your website complies with the EU Cookie Law / GDPR.
GTmetrix for WordPress – GTmetrix can help you develop a faster, more efficient, and all-around improved website experience for your users. Your users will love you for it.
TinyMCE Advanced – Enables advanced features and plugins in TinyMCE, the visual editor in WordPress.
Wordfence Security – Anti-virus, Firewall and Malware Scan
WP Meta SEO – WP Meta SEO is a plugin for WordPress to fill meta for content, images and main SEO info in a single view.
WP Performance Score Booster – Speed-up page load times and improve website scores in services like PageSpeed, YSlow, Pingdom and GTmetrix.
WP SEO HTML Sitemap – A responsive HTML sitemap that uses all of the settings for your XML sitemap in the WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin.
WP-Optimize – WP-Optimize is WordPress’s #1 most installed optimisation plugin. With it, you can clean up your database easily and safely, without manual queries.
WP News and Scrolling Widgets Pro – WP News Pro plugin with six different types of shortcode and seven different types of widgets. Display News posts with various designs.
Yoast SEO – The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.
YouTube – YouTube Embed and YouTube Gallery WordPress Plugin. Embed a responsive video, YouTube channel, playlist gallery, or live stream

How I use these plugins to speed up my site.

I use EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to auto-compress my images and to provide a CDN for media asset deliver (pre-Cloudflare). Learn more about ExactDN and EWWW.io here.
I use Autoptimize plugin to optimise HTML/CSS/JS and ensure select assets are on my EWWW CDN. This plugin also removes WordPress Emojis, removed the use of Google Fonts, allows you to define pre-configured domains, Async Javascript-files etc.
I use BJ Lazy Load to prevent all images in a post from loading on load (and only as the user scrolls down the page).
GTmetrix for WordPress and Cloudflare plugins are for information only?
I use WP-Optimize to ensure my database is healthy and to disable comments/trackbacks and pingbacks.

Let’s Test UpCloud’s Disk IO in Chicago

Looks good to me, Read IO is a little bit lower than UpCloud’s Singapore data centre but still, it’s faster than Vultr. I can’t wait for more data centres to become available around the world.

Why is UpCloud Disk IO so good?

I asked UpCloud on Twitter why the Disk IO was so good.

“MaxIOPS is UpCloud’s proprietary block-storage technology. MaxIOPS is physically redundant storage technology where all customer’s data is located in two separate physical devices at all times. UpCloud uses InfiniBand (!) network to connect storage backends to compute nodes, where customers’ cloud servers are running. All disks are enterprise-grade SSD’s. And using separate storage backends, it allows us to live migrate our customers’ cloud servers freely inside our infrastructure between compute nodes – whether it be due to hardware malfunction (compute node) or backend software updates (example CPU vulnerability and immediate patching).“

My Answers to Questions to support

Q1) What’s the difference between backups and snapshots (a Twitter user said Snapshots were a thing)

A1) Backups and snapshots are the same things with our infrastructure.

Q2) What are charges for backup of a 50GB drive?

A2) We charge $0.06 / GB of the disk being captured. But capture the whole disk, not just what was used. So for a 50GB drive, we charge $0.06 * 50 = $3/month. Even if 1GB were only used.

Support confirmed that each backup is charged (so 5 times manual backups are charged 5 times). Setting up a daily auto backup schedule for 2 weeks would create 14 billable backup charges.
I guess a 25GB server will be $1.50 a month

Q3) What are data charges if I go over my 2TB quota?

A3) Outgoing data charges are $0.056/GB after the pre-configured allowance.

Q4) What happens if my balance hits $0?

A4) You will get notification of low account balance 2 weeks in advance based on your current daily spend. When your balance reaches zero, your servers will be shut down. But they will still be charged for. You can automatically top-up if you want to assign a payment type from your Control Panel. You deposit into your balance when you want. We use a prepay model of payment, so you need to top up before using, not billing you after usage. We give you lots of chances to top-up.

Support Tips

One thing to note, when deleting servers (CPU, RAM) instances, you get the option to delete the storages separately via a pop-up window. Choose to delete permanently to delete the disk, to save credit. Any disk storage lying around even unattached to servers will be billed.
Charges are in USD.

I think it’s time to delete my domain from Vultr in Sydney.

Deleted my Vultr domain

I deleted my Vultr domain.

Done.

Check out my new guide on Nixstats for awesome monitoring

What I would like

Ability to name individual manual backups (tag with why I backed up).
Ability to push user defined data from my VM to the dashboard
Cheaper scheduled backups
Sydney data centres (one day)

Update: Post UpCloud Launch Tweaks (Awesome)

I had a look at https://www.webpagetest.org/ results to see where else I can optimise webpage delivery.

HTTP2 Push

I added http2 to my listening servers I tested a http2 push page by defining this in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Once I tested that push (demo here) was working I then defined two files to push that were being sent from my server

2FA Authentication at login

I recently checked out YubiCo YubiKeys and I have secured my Linux servers with 2FA prompts at login. Read the guide here. I secured my WordPress aswel.

Performance

I used the WordPress Plugin Autoptimize to remove Google font usage (this removed a number of files being loaded when my page loads).

I used the WordPress Plugin WP-Optimize plugin into to remove comments and disable pingbacks and trackbacks.

Conclusion

I love UpCloud’s fast servers, give them a go (use my link and get $25 free credit).

I love Cloudflare for providing a fast CDN.

I love ewww.io’s automatic Image Compression and Resizing plugin that automatically handles image optimisations and pre Cloudflare/first hit CDN caching.

Read my post about server monitoring with Nixstats here.

Let the results speak for themselves (sub <1 second load times).

More Reading on UpCloud

https://www.upcloud.com/documentation/faq/

UpCloud Server Status

http://status.upcloud.com

I hope this guide helps someone.

Free Credit

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

2020 Update. I have stopped using Putty and WinSCP. I now use MobaXterm (a tabbed SSH client for Windows) as it is way faster than WinSCP and better than Putty. Read my review post of MobaXTerm here.

Ask a question or recommend an article

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Revision History

v2.2 Converting to Blocks

v2.1 Newer GTMetrix scores

v2.0 New UpCloud UI Update and links to new guides.

v1.9 Spelling and grammar

v1.8 Trial mode gotcha (deposit money ASAP)

v1.7 Added RSA Private key info

v1.7 – Added new firewall rules info.

v1.6 – Added more bloat to the site, still good.

v1.5 Improving Accessibility

v1.4 Added Firewall Price

v1.3 Added wp-config and plugin usage descriptions.

v1.2 Added GTMetrix historical chart.

v1.1 Fixed free typos and added final conclusion images.

v1.0 Added final results

v0.9 added more tweaks (http2 push, removing unwanted files etc)

v0.81 Draft – Added memory usage chart and added MaxIOPS info from UpCloud.

v0.8 Draft post.

How to install PHP 7.2.latest on Ubuntu 16.04

November 17, 2018 by Simon

How to install PHP 7.2.latest on Ubuntu 16.04/ Ubuntu 18.04/Debian etc/

I have a number of guides on moving away from CPanel, Setting up VM’s on UpCloud, AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line. PHP is my programming language of choice.

PHP has a support page that declares the support date ranges and support types: http://php.net/supported-versions.php

A version of PHP is either actively supported, security fix supported or end of life. Read this post to check WordPress for PHP compatibility.

From time to time vulnerabilities come up that require PHP updates to be applied.

Multiple flaw found in #PHP, most severe of which could allow arbitrary code execution

Affected Versions:
PHP 7.2 —prior to 7.2.5
PHP 7.1 —prior to 7.1.17
PHP 7.0 —prior to 7.0.30
PHP 5.0 —prior to 5.6.36https://t.co/TtiqXePoHu

Upgrade to the latest version of PHP immediately

— The Hacker News (@TheHackersNews) May 1, 2018

#PHP 7.2.12 has been released https://t.co/iNXGYTs0PX

— Neustradamus (@neustradamus) November 9, 2018

Source Link here

I have guides on setting up PHP 7 here on Digital Ocean, here on AWS and here on Vultr. I have tried upgrading to PHP 7.1 in the past with no luck (I forgot to change something and rolled back to 7.0).

FYI: I have a guide on setting up PHP child workers so the output from some commands below may be different than yours. Here are the steps I performed to install PHP 7.2 alongside 7.0 then switch. to 7.2.

Backup your system

Do perform a Snapshot or Backup before proceeding. Nothing beats a quick restore if things fail.

Note: Use this information at your own risk.

Updating php 7.2.12 to 7.2.12

Update your Ubuntu systems

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Updating from an older php (e.g 5.x, 7.1, 7.1 to say 7.2.12)

Backup PHP

cd /etc/php
zip -r php7.0backup.zip 7.0/

Install Helper

This software provides an abstraction of the used apt repositories. It allows you to easily manage your distribution and independent software vendor software sources. More Info

apt-get install python-software-properties

Add the main PHP repo (more information)

add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Update the package lists

“In a nutshell, apt-get update doesn’t actually install new versions of the software. Instead, it updates the package lists for upgrades for packages that need upgrading, as well as new packages that have just come to the repositories.” from here

apt-get update

List Installed Packages (optional)

dpkg -l

Install PHP 7.2

apt-get install php7.2

Install common PHP modules

apt-get install php-pear php7.2-curl php7.2-dev php7.2-mbstring php7.2-zip php7.2-mysql php7.2-xml

Install PHP FPM

apt-get install php7.2-fpm

Update all packages (may be needed to update from php 7.2.4 to 7.2.5)

sudo apt-get upgrade

Edit your NGINX sites-available config

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
# I set: fastcgi_pass /run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;

Edit your NGINX sites-enabled config

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
# I set: fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;

I edited these lines

location ~ \.php$ {
    ...
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
    ...
}

Edit your PHP config (and make desired changes)

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

Edit your PHP pool config file (as required). See this guide here.

e.g.

> cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
> max_input_vars = 1000
> memory_limit = 1024M
> max_file_uploads = 8M
> post_max_size = 8M

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Make sure you set: listen = /run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock

Set PHP 7.2 as the default PHP

update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php7.2

Check your PHP version

php -v

Reload PHP

sudo service php7.2-fpm reload

Reload NGINX

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

Check the status of your PHP (and child workers)

sudo service php7.2-fpm status
● php7.2-fpm.service - The PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.2-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2018-05-04 19:02:27 AEST;
     Docs: man:php-fpm7.2(8)
  Process: 123456 ExecReload=/bin/kill -USR2 $MAINPID (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 123456 (php-fpm7.2)
   Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 10, Requests: 0, slow: 0, Traffic: 0req/sec"
    Tasks: 11
   Memory: 30.5M
      CPU: 10.678s
   CGroup: /system.slice/php7.2-fpm.service
           ├─16494 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.2/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
           ├─16497 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16498 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16499 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16500 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16501 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16502 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16503 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16504 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─16505 php-fpm: pool www
           └─16506 php-fpm: pool www

Check your website.

Troubleshooting

Guides that helped me.

https://thishosting.rocks/install-php-on-ubuntu/

https://websiteforstudents.com/wordpress-supports-php-7-2-heres-how-to-install-with-nginx-and-mariadb-support/

Check your log files

tail /var/log/nginx/error.log

Debug FPM Service

systemctl status php7.2-fpm.service
● php7.2-fpm.service - The PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.2-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2018-05-06 00:18:55 AEST; 7min ago
     Docs: man:php-fpm7.2(8)
  Process: 123456 ExecReload=/bin/kill -USR2 $MAINPID (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 123 (php-fpm7.2)
   Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 10, Requests: 44, slow: 0, Traffic: 0req/sec"
    Tasks: 11
   Memory: 212.6M
      CPU: 12.052s
   CGroup: /system.slice/php7.2-fpm.service
           ├─438 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.2/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
           ├─441 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─442 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─443 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─444 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─445 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─446 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─447 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─449 php-fpm: pool www
           ├─450 php-fpm: pool www
           └─451 php-fpm: pool www

May 06 00:18:55 server systemd[1]: Stopped The PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process Manager.
May 06 00:18:55 server systemd[1]: Starting The PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process Manager...
May 06 00:18:55 server systemd[1]: Started The PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process Manager.

Remove PHP 7.0

sudo apt-get purge php7.0-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libaspell15 libauthen-pam-perl libc-client2007e libio-pty-perl libmcrypt4 librecode0 libtidy-0.99-0 libxmlrpc-epi0 linux-headers-4.4.0-109
  linux-headers-4.4.0-109-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-112 linux-headers-4.4.0-112-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-87
  linux-headers-4.4.0-87-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-96 linux-headers-4.4.0-96-generic linux-image-4.4.0-109-generic
  linux-image-4.4.0-112-generic linux-image-4.4.0-87-generic linux-image-4.4.0-96-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-109-generic
  linux-image-extra-4.4.0-112-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-87-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-96-generic mlock
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  php7.0-cli* php7.0-common* php7.0-curl* php7.0-fpm* php7.0-gd* php7.0-imap* php7.0-intl* php7.0-json* php7.0-mbstring* php7.0-mcrypt*
  php7.0-mysql* php7.0-opcache* php7.0-pspell* php7.0-readline* php7.0-recode* php7.0-sqlite3* php7.0-tidy* php7.0-xml* php7.0-xmlrpc*
  php7.0-xsl*

PHP 7.0 Removed 🙂

Remove other unused packages

sudo apt autoremove

At the time of writing (November the 18th 2018) PHP 7.2.12 is the latest version of PHP and PHP 7.3 will be out at the end of the year.

Good luck and I hope this guide helps someone

Ask a question or recommend an article

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Revision History

v1.4 Updated the post to mention PHP 7.0 EOL

v1.3 Updated to add PHP 7.2.12 information

v1.2 PHP 7.2.9 and PHP 7.2 updates

v1.1 Remove PHP 7.0 steps

v1.0 Initial post

Setup two factor authenticator protection at login on Ubuntu or Debian

October 14, 2018 by Simon

This is a quick post that shows how I set up two-factor authenticator protection at login on Ubuntu or Debian

Aside

If you have not read my previous posts I have now moved my blog to the awesome UpCloud host (signup using this link to get $25 free UpCloud VM credit). I compared Digital Ocean, Vultr and UpCloud Disk IO here and UpCloud came out on top by a long way (read the blog post here). Here is my blog post on moving from Vultr to UpCloud.

Buy a domain name here

Now on with the post.

Backup

I ensured I had a backup of my server. This is easy to do on UpCloud. If something goes wrong I will rollback.

Why Setup 2FA on SSH connections

1) Firewalls or whitelists may not protect you from detection.

2) SSH authorisation bypass bugs may appear.

I’ve just relased libssh 0.8.4 and 0.7.6 to address CVE-2018-10933. This is an auth bypass in the server. Please update as soon as possible! https://t.co/Qhra2TXqzm

— Andreas Schneider (@cryptomilk) October 16, 2018

2FA authorisation is another lube of defence.

Yubico Yubi Key

Read my block post here to learn how to use the Yubico YubiKey NEO hardware-based two-factor authentication device to improve authentication and logins to OSX and software

Timezone

It is important that you set the same timezone as the server you are trying to secure two 2FA. I can run this command on Linux to set the timezone.

On Debian, I set the time using this guide.

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Check the time command

> timedatectl
> Local time: Tue 2019-06-25 16:45:20 UTC
> Universal time: Tue 2019-06-25 16:45:20 UTC
> RTC time: Wed 2019-06-26 02:37:44
> Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)
> Network time on: yes
> NTP synchronized: yes
> RTC in local TZ: no

sudo hwclock --show

I set the timezone

> sudo timedatectl set-timezone Australia/Sydney

I confirmed the timezone

> timedatectl
> Local time: Wed 2019-06-26 02:47:42 AEST
> Universal time: Tue 2019-06-25 16:47:42 UTC
> RTC time: Wed 2019-06-26 02:40:06
> Time zone: Australia/Sydney (AEST, +1000)
> Network time on: yes
> NTP synchronized: yes
> RTC in local TZ: no

I installed a npt time server

I followed this guide to install an NTP time server (failed at: ntpdate linuxconfig.ntp) and this guide to manually sync

I installed the Google Authenticator app

sudo apt install libpam-google-authenticator

sudo apt-get install libpam-google-authenticator

Configure Google Authenticator

Run google-authenticator and answer the following questions

Q1) Do you want authentication tokens to be time-based (y/n): Y

You will be presented with a token you can add to the Yubico Authenticator or other authenticator apps,

TIP: Write down any recovery codes displayed

Scan the code with your 2FA Authenticator app (e.g Google Authenticator, Yubico Authenticator or freeOTP from https://freeotp.github.io)

The 2FA code is now available for use in my YubiCo Authenticator app

Q2) Do you want me to update your “/root/.google_authenticator” file? (y/n): Y

Q3) Do you want to disallow multiple uses of the same authentication
token? This restricts you to one login about every 30s, but it increases
your chances to notice or even prevent man-in-the-middle attacks (y/n): Y

Q4) By default, a new token is generated every 30 seconds by the mobile app.
In order to compensate for possible time-skew between the client and the server,
we allow an extra token before and after the current time. This allows for a
time skew of up to 30 seconds between the authentication server and client. If you
experience problems with poor time synchronization, you can increase the window
from its default size of 3 permitted codes (one previous code, the current
code, the next code) to 17 permitted codes (the 8 previous codes, the current
code, and the 8 next codes). This will permit for a time skew of up to 4 minutes
between client and server.
Do you want to do so? (y/n) y: Y

Q5) If the computer that you are logging into isn’t hardened against brute-force login attempts, you can enable rate-limiting for the authentication module. By default, this limits attackers to no more than 3 login attempts every 30s.
Do you want to enable rate-limiting? (y/n): Y

Review Google Authenticator Config

sudo nano ~/.google_authenticator

You can change this if need be.

sudo nano ~/.google_authenticator

Edit SSH Configuration (Authentication)

sudo nano /etc/pam.d/sshd

Add the line below the line “@include common-auth”

auth required pam_google_authenticator.so

Comment out the following line (this is the most important step, this forces 2FA)

#@include common-auth

Edit SSH Configuration (Challenge Response Authentication)

Edit the ssh config file.

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Search For

ChallengeResponseAuthentication

Set this to

yes

Ensure the following line exists

UsePAM yes

Add the following line

AuthenticationMethods publickey,password publickey,keyboard-interactive

Edit Common Auth

sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-auth

Add the following line before the line that says “auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so nullok_secure”

auth required pam_google_authenticator.so

Restart the SSH service and test the codes in a new terminal before rebooting.

TIP: Do not exit the working connected session and you may need it to fix issues.

Restart the SSH service a tets it

/etc/init.d/ssh restart
[ ok ] Restarting ssh (via systemctl): ssh.service.

If you have failed to set it up authenticator codes will fail to work.

Failed attempts

Further authentication required
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Verification code:
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Verification code:
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Verification code:

When it is configured OK (at login SSH connection) I was prompted for further information

Further Information required
Using keyboard-interactive authentication
Verification Code: ######
sshuser@server#

I am now prompted at login to insert a 2FA token (after inserting my YubiKey)

Turn on 2FA on other sites

Check out https://www.turnon2fa.com and tutorials here.

I hope this guide helps someone.

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 UpCloud VM credit if you need to create a server online.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

Ask a question or recommend an article

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Revision History

V1.4 June 2019: Works on Debian 9.9

V1.3 turnon2fa.com

V1.2 ssh auth bypass

v1.1 Authenticator apps

v1.0 Initial Post

Upgrading an Ubuntu server on UpCloud to add more CPU, Memory and Disk Space

June 25, 2018 by Simon

Upgrading an Ubuntu server on UpCloud to add more CPU, Memory and Disk Space

If you have not read my previous posts I have now moved my blog from Vultr to the awesome UpCloud host (signup using this link to get $25 free credit).

Recently I compared Digital Ocean, Vultr and UpCloud Disk IO here and UpCloud came out on top by a long way (read the blog post here). Here is my blog post on moving from Vultr to UpCloud.

Spoiler: UpCloud performance is great.

Why Upgrade

I have 1 CPU, 1 GB memory and 50GB storage and it is running well? I have PHP child workers set up and have set up the preferred use of memory over swap file usage.

Before UpCloud, when I had 512MB ram on Vultr I had multiple NGINX crashed a day so I used a bash script and scheduled a cron job to clear memory cache when memory fell below 100MB (view the script here). To further increase the speed of the WordPress I have configured the OS to use memory over the disk. About once a day free memory falls below 100MB (this is not a problem as my script clears cached items automatically).

I’d like to add more memory as I am working on some things (watch this space) and I will use the extra memory. I’d prefer the server is set up now for the expected workload.

How to Upgrade

This is how I upgraded from 1xCPU/2GB Memory/50GB Storage/2TB Transferred Data to a 2 CPU/4GB Mmeory/80GB Storage/4TB Transferred Data server.

UpCloud Pricing: https://www.upcloud.com/pricing/

Upgrade an UpCloud VM

I shut down my existing VM. Read this guide to setup a VM.

shutdown -P

Login to the UpCloud dashboard, select your server (confirm the server has shut down) and click General Settings, choose the upgrade and click Update.

I confirmed the upgrade options (2x CPU, 4096 MB Memory).

Click Update

After 10 seconds you can start your server from the UpCloud server.

I confirmed the CPU upgrade was visible in the VM

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 63
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10GHz
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x1
cpu MHz         : 3099.978
cache size      : 16384 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl xtopology cpuid pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm invpcid_single pti fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid xsaveopt arat
bugs            : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips        : 6199.95
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 63
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10GHz
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x1
cpu MHz         : 3099.978
cache size      : 16384 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 1
initial apicid  : 1
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl xtopology cpuid pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm invpcid_single pti fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid xsaveopt arat
bugs            : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips        : 6199.95
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Software Tweaks Post Upgrade.

I added these settings to the top of /etc/nginx/nginx.conf to ensure the extra CPU was used.

worker_processes auto;
worker_cpu_affinity auto;

I increased PHP FPM ( /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini ) to increase memory usage and child workers. I doubled child workers and max memory limit.

memory_limit = 3072M
pm.max_children = 80
pm.start_servers = 30
pm.min_spare_servers = 10
pm.max_spare_servers = 30

I restarted NGINX and PHP

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart
service php7.2-fpm restart

I tweaked WordPress max memory limits

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT','3072M');
define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT','3072M');

MySQL Tweaks: I logged into MySQL

mysql -u root -p

I ran “SHOW GLOBAL STATUS” to view stats

mysql> SHOW GLOBAL STATUS;
+-----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Variable_name                                 | Value                                            |
+-----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Aborted_clients                               | 0                                                |
| Aborted_connects                              | 0                                                |
| Binlog_cache_disk_use                         | 0                                                |
| Binlog_cache_use                              | 0                                                |
| Binlog_stmt_cache_disk_use                    | 0                                                |
| Binlog_stmt_cache_use                         | 0                                                |
| Bytes_received                                | 3179986                                          |
| Bytes_sent                                    | 223872114                                        |
| Com_admin_commands                            | 0                                                |
| Com_assign_to_keycache                        | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_db                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_db_upgrade                          | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_event                               | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_function                            | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_instance                            | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_procedure                           | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_server                              | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_table                               | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_tablespace                          | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_user                                | 0                                                |
| Com_analyze                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_begin                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_binlog                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_call_procedure                            | 0                                                |
| Com_change_db                                 | 284                                              |
| Com_change_master                             | 0                                                |
| Com_change_repl_filter                        | 0                                                |
| Com_check                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_checksum                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_commit                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_create_db                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_create_event                              | 0                                                |
| Com_create_function                           | 0                                                |
| Com_create_index                              | 0                                                |
| Com_create_procedure                          | 0                                                |
| Com_create_server                             | 0                                                |
| Com_create_table                              | 0                                                |
| Com_create_trigger                            | 0                                                |
| Com_create_udf                                | 0                                                |
| Com_create_user                               | 0                                                |
| Com_create_view                               | 0                                                |
| Com_dealloc_sql                               | 0                                                |
| Com_delete                                    | 18                                               |
| Com_delete_multi                              | 0                                                |
| Com_do                                        | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_db                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_event                                | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_function                             | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_index                                | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_procedure                            | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_server                               | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_table                                | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_trigger                              | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_user                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_view                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_empty_query                               | 0                                                |
| Com_execute_sql                               | 0                                                |
| Com_explain_other                             | 0                                                |
| Com_flush                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_get_diagnostics                           | 0                                                |
| Com_grant                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_ha_close                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_ha_open                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_ha_read                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_help                                      | 0                                                |
| Com_insert                                    | 342                                              |
| Com_insert_select                             | 0                                                |
| Com_install_plugin                            | 0                                                |
| Com_kill                                      | 0                                                |
| Com_load                                      | 0                                                |
| Com_lock_tables                               | 0                                                |
| Com_optimize                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_preload_keys                              | 0                                                |
| Com_prepare_sql                               | 0                                                |
| Com_purge                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_purge_before_date                         | 0                                                |
| Com_release_savepoint                         | 0                                                |
| Com_rename_table                              | 0                                                |
| Com_rename_user                               | 0                                                |
| Com_repair                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_replace                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_replace_select                            | 0                                                |
| Com_reset                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_resignal                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_revoke                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_revoke_all                                | 0                                                |
| Com_rollback                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_rollback_to_savepoint                     | 0                                                |
| Com_savepoint                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_select                                    | 16358                                            |
| Com_set_option                                | 849                                              |
| Com_signal                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_show_binlog_events                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_binlogs                              | 0                                                |
| Com_show_charsets                             | 0                                                |
| Com_show_collations                           | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_db                            | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_event                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_func                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_proc                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_table                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_trigger                       | 0                                                |
| Com_show_databases                            | 3                                                |
| Com_show_engine_logs                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_engine_mutex                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_engine_status                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_events                               | 0                                                |
| Com_show_errors                               | 0                                                |
| Com_show_fields                               | 921                                              |
| Com_show_function_code                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_function_status                      | 0                                                |
| Com_show_grants                               | 0                                                |
| Com_show_keys                                 | 1                                                |
| Com_show_master_status                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_open_tables                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_plugins                              | 0                                                |
| Com_show_privileges                           | 0                                                |
| Com_show_procedure_code                       | 0                                                |
| Com_show_procedure_status                     | 0                                                |
| Com_show_processlist                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_profile                              | 0                                                |
| Com_show_profiles                             | 0                                                |
| Com_show_relaylog_events                      | 0                                                |
| Com_show_slave_hosts                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_slave_status                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_status                               | 6                                                |
| Com_show_storage_engines                      | 0                                                |
| Com_show_table_status                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_tables                               | 2                                                |
| Com_show_triggers                             | 0                                                |
| Com_show_variables                            | 6                                                |
| Com_show_warnings                             | 1                                                |
| Com_show_create_user                          | 0                                                |
| Com_shutdown                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_slave_start                               | 0                                                |
| Com_slave_stop                                | 0                                                |
| Com_group_replication_start                   | 0                                                |
| Com_group_replication_stop                    | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_execute                              | 4                                                |
| Com_stmt_close                                | 4                                                |
| Com_stmt_fetch                                | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_prepare                              | 4                                                |
| Com_stmt_reset                                | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_send_long_data                       | 4                                                |
| Com_truncate                                  | 2                                                |
| Com_uninstall_plugin                          | 0                                                |
| Com_unlock_tables                             | 0                                                |
| Com_update                                    | 70                                               |
| Com_update_multi                              | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_commit                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_end                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_prepare                                | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_recover                                | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_rollback                               | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_start                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_reprepare                            | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_accept                      | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_internal                    | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_max_connections             | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_peer_address                | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_select                      | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_tcpwrap                     | 0                                                |
| Connections                                   | 292                                              |
| Created_tmp_disk_tables                       | 1124                                             |
| Created_tmp_files                             | 30                                               |
| Created_tmp_tables                            | 1369                                             |
| Delayed_errors                                | 0                                                |
| Delayed_insert_threads                        | 0                                                |
| Delayed_writes                                | 0                                                |
| Flush_commands                                | 1                                                |
| Handler_commit                                | 6094                                             |
| Handler_delete                                | 33                                               |
| Handler_discover                              | 0                                                |
| Handler_external_lock                         | 38571                                            |
| Handler_mrr_init                              | 0                                                |
| Handler_prepare                               | 0                                                |
| Handler_read_first                            | 2299                                             |
| Handler_read_key                              | 134761                                           |
| Handler_read_last                             | 237                                              |
| Handler_read_next                             | 310119                                           |
| Handler_read_prev                             | 2733                                             |
| Handler_read_rnd                              | 222350                                           |
| Handler_read_rnd_next                         | 472820                                           |
| Handler_rollback                              | 0                                                |
| Handler_savepoint                             | 0                                                |
| Handler_savepoint_rollback                    | 0                                                |
| Handler_update                                | 15605                                            |
| Handler_write                                 | 17310                                            |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_dump_status                | Dumping of buffer pool not started               |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_load_status                | Buffer pool(s) load completed at 180624 23:38:01 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_resize_status              |                                                  |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_data                 | 1035                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_bytes_data                 | 16957440                                         |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_dirty                | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_bytes_dirty                | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_flushed              | 1936                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_free                 | 7144                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_misc                 | 13                                               |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_total                | 8192                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead_rnd             | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead                 | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead_evicted         | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_requests              | 306665                                           |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_reads                      | 950                                              |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_wait_free                  | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_write_requests             | 26509                                            |
| Innodb_data_fsyncs                            | 1229                                             |
| Innodb_data_pending_fsyncs                    | 0                                                |
| Innodb_data_pending_reads                     | 0                                                |
| Innodb_data_pending_writes                    | 0                                                |
| Innodb_data_read                              | 16273920                                         |
| Innodb_data_reads                             | 1078                                             |
| Innodb_data_writes                            | 2857                                             |
| Innodb_data_written                           | 53379584                                         |
| Innodb_dblwr_pages_written                    | 1275                                             |
| Innodb_dblwr_writes                           | 109                                              |
| Innodb_log_waits                              | 0                                                |
| Innodb_log_write_requests                     | 450                                              |
| Innodb_log_writes                             | 585                                              |
| Innodb_os_log_fsyncs                          | 793                                              |
| Innodb_os_log_pending_fsyncs                  | 0                                                |
| Innodb_os_log_pending_writes                  | 0                                                |
| Innodb_os_log_written                         | 664064                                           |
| Innodb_page_size                              | 16384                                            |
| Innodb_pages_created                          | 56                                               |
| Innodb_pages_read                             | 988                                              |
| Innodb_pages_written                          | 1936                                             |
| Innodb_row_lock_current_waits                 | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_time                          | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_time_avg                      | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_time_max                      | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_waits                         | 0                                                |
| Innodb_rows_deleted                           | 2                                                |
| Innodb_rows_inserted                          | 19219                                            |
| Innodb_rows_read                              | 249102                                           |
| Innodb_rows_updated                           | 77                                               |
| Innodb_num_open_files                         | 81                                               |
| Innodb_truncated_status_writes                | 0                                                |
| Innodb_available_undo_logs                    | 128                                              |
| Key_blocks_not_flushed                        | 0                                                |
| Key_blocks_unused                             | 12751                                            |
| Key_blocks_used                               | 645                                              |
| Key_read_requests                             | 321877                                           |
| Key_reads                                     | 648                                              |
| Key_write_requests                            | 196                                              |
| Key_writes                                    | 150                                              |
| Locked_connects                               | 0                                                |
| Max_execution_time_exceeded                   | 0                                                |
| Max_execution_time_set                        | 0                                                |
| Max_execution_time_set_failed                 | 0                                                |
| Max_used_connections                          | 3                                                |
| Max_used_connections_time                     | 2018-06-24 23:43:48                              |
| Not_flushed_delayed_rows                      | 0                                                |
| Ongoing_anonymous_transaction_count           | 0                                                |
| Open_files                                    | 229                                              |
| Open_streams                                  | 0                                                |
| Open_table_definitions                        | 206                                              |
| Open_tables                                   | 786                                              |
| Opened_files                                  | 502                                              |
| Opened_table_definitions                      | 208                                              |
| Opened_tables                                 | 817                                              |
| Performance_schema_accounts_lost              | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_cond_classes_lost          | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_cond_instances_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_digest_lost                | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_file_classes_lost          | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_file_handles_lost          | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_file_instances_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_hosts_lost                 | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_index_stat_lost            | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_locker_lost                | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_memory_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_metadata_lock_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_mutex_classes_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_mutex_instances_lost       | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_nested_statement_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_prepared_statements_lost   | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_program_lost               | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_rwlock_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_rwlock_instances_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_session_connect_attrs_lost | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_socket_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_socket_instances_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_stage_classes_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_statement_classes_lost     | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_table_handles_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_table_instances_lost       | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_table_lock_stat_lost       | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_thread_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_thread_instances_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_users_lost                 | 0                                                |
| Prepared_stmt_count                           | 0                                                |
| Qcache_free_blocks                            | 1                                                |
| Qcache_free_memory                            | 16760152                                         |
| Qcache_hits                                   | 0                                                |
| Qcache_inserts                                | 0                                                |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes                          | 0                                                |
| Qcache_not_cached                             | 16355                                            |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache                       | 0                                                |
| Qcache_total_blocks                           | 1                                                |
| Queries                                       | 19164                                            |
| Questions                                     | 19155                                            |
| Select_full_join                              | 0                                                |
| Select_full_range_join                        | 0                                                |
| Select_range                                  | 2677                                             |
| Select_range_check                            | 0                                                |
| Select_scan                                   | 2098                                             |
| Slave_open_temp_tables                        | 0                                                |
| Slow_launch_threads                           | 0                                                |
| Slow_queries                                  | 0                                                |
| Sort_merge_passes                             | 12                                               |
| Sort_range                                    | 4859                                             |
| Sort_rows                                     | 244452                                           |
| Sort_scan                                     | 854                                              |
| Ssl_accept_renegotiates                       | 0                                                |
| Ssl_accepts                                   | 0                                                |
| Ssl_callback_cache_hits                       | 0                                                |
| Ssl_cipher                                    |                                                  |
| Ssl_cipher_list                               |                                                  |
| Ssl_client_connects                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_connect_renegotiates                      | 0                                                |
| Ssl_ctx_verify_depth                          | 0                                                |
| Ssl_ctx_verify_mode                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_default_timeout                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_finished_accepts                          | 0                                                |
| Ssl_finished_connects                         | 0                                                |
| Ssl_server_not_after                          |                                                  |
| Ssl_server_not_before                         |                                                  |
| Ssl_session_cache_hits                        | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_misses                      | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_mode                        | NONE                                             |
| Ssl_session_cache_overflows                   | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_size                        | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_timeouts                    | 0                                                |
| Ssl_sessions_reused                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_used_session_cache_entries                | 0                                                |
| Ssl_verify_depth                              | 0                                                |
| Ssl_verify_mode                               | 0                                                |
| Ssl_version                                   |                                                  |
| Table_locks_immediate                         | 11962                                            |
| Table_locks_waited                            | 0                                                |
| Table_open_cache_hits                         | 19395                                            |
| Table_open_cache_misses                       | 817                                              |
| Table_open_cache_overflows                    | 12                                               |
| Tc_log_max_pages_used                         | 0                                                |
| Tc_log_page_size                              | 0                                                |
| Tc_log_page_waits                             | 0                                                |
| Threads_cached                                | 2                                                |
| Threads_connected                             | 1                                                |
| Threads_created                               | 3                                                |
| Threads_running                               | 1                                                |
| Uptime                                        | 2944                                             |
| Uptime_since_flush_status                     | 2944                                             |
+-----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
353 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Read more on SHOW GLOBAL STATUS here. Read more on the values here.

I can see NO major errors here (possibly due to UpClouds awesome disk IO) so I won’t be making memory tweaks in MySQL. Sign Up using this link and get $25 credit free on UpCloud and see for yourself how fast they are.

Configure Ubuntu System Memory Usage

Edit /etc/sysctl.conf

Add the following to allow things to sit in ram longer

vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

Snip from: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt

This percentage value controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for caching of directory and inode objects.

At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and swapcache reclaim.  Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer to retain dentry and inode caches. When vfs_cache_pressure=0, the kernel will never reclaim dentries and inodes due to memory pressure and this can easily lead to out-of-memory conditions. Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100 causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes.

Increasing vfs_cache_pressure significantly beyond 100 may have negative performance impact. Reclaim code needs to take various locks to find freeable directory and inode objects. With vfs_cache_pressure=1000, it will look for ten times more freeable objects than there are."

Read these pages here and here regarding setting MySQL memory.

Reboot

shutdown -r now

Resize the disk

The 2x CPU, 4GB memory plan comes with 80GB storage allowance. My disk at present is 50GB and I will update the size soon following this guide soon.

Quick Benchmark

I used loader.io to load 500 users to access my site in 1 minute.

The benchmark worked with no errors.

This benchmark was performed with no Cloudflare caching. I should get Cloudflare caching working again to lower the average response time. I loaded my website manually in Google Chrome while loader.io threw 500 users at my site and it loaded very fast.

Conclusion

After a few days, I checked my memory logs and there were no low memory triggers (just normal internal memory management triggers). Ubuntu was happier.

This graph was taken before I set “vm.vfs_cache_pressure” so I will update this graph in a few days.

I hope this guide helps someone.

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

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Revision History

1.0 Initial Post

Measuring VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 4 of 4

June 5, 2018 by Simon

How can you measure VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 4 of 4

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

I ran the MySQL benchmark preparation command again (no problem this time).

sysbench --test=oltp --oltp-table-size=1000000 --db-driver=mysql --mysql-db=test --mysql-user=root --mysql-password=###################### prepare
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Creating table 'sbtest'...
Creating 1000000 records in table 'sbtest'...

Test table and records created

Now I can benchmark MySQL on my main server.

sysbench --test=oltp --oltp-table-size=1000000 --db-driver=mysql --mysql-db=test --mysql-user=root --mysql-password=################################# --max-time=60 --oltp-read-only=on --max-requests=0 --num-threads=8 run

RAW Output

sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 8

Doing OLTP test.
Running mixed OLTP test
Doing read-only test
Using Special distribution (12 iterations,  1 pct of values are returned in 75 pct cases)
Using "BEGIN" for starting transactions
Using auto_inc on the id column
Threads started!
Time limit exceeded, exiting...
(last message repeated 7 times)
Done.

OLTP test statistics:
    queries performed:
        read:                            336210
        write:                           0
        other:                           48030
        total:                           384240
    transactions:                        24015  (400.09 per sec.)
    deadlocks:                           0      (0.00 per sec.)
    read/write requests:                 336210 (5601.24 per sec.)
    other operations:                    48030  (800.18 per sec.)

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          60.0242s
    total number of events:              24015
    total time taken by event execution: 480.0242
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  1.79ms
         avg:                                 19.99ms
         max:                                141.00ms
         approx.  95 percentile:              37.49ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           3001.8750/27.36
    execution time (avg/stddev):   60.0030/0.01

Results

queries performed (in 60 seconds):

read: 336210
other: 48030
total: 384240

I decided to add an index to see if I can speed this query up (read the MySQL index page here). I added an index (in Adminer) on the columns “Id” and “pad” for the sbtest table in the test database

I restarted the MySQL process

mysql restart
[ ok ] Restarting mysql (via systemctl): mysql.service.

I ran the same benchmark again.

Raw Output

sysbench --test=oltp --oltp-table-size=1000000 --db-driver=mysql --mysql-db=test --mysql-user=root --mysql-password=########################## --max-time=60 --oltp-read-only=on --max-requests=0 --num-threads=8 run
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 8

Doing OLTP test.
Running mixed OLTP test
Doing read-only test
Using Special distribution (12 iterations,  1 pct of values are returned in 75 pct cases)
Using "BEGIN" for starting transactions
Using auto_inc on the id column
Threads started!
Time limit exceeded, exiting...
(last message repeated 7 times)
Done.

OLTP test statistics:
    queries performed:
        read:                            426538
        write:                           0
        other:                           60934
        total:                           487472
    transactions:                        30467  (507.69 per sec.)
    deadlocks:                           0      (0.00 per sec.)
    read/write requests:                 426538 (7107.67 per sec.)
    other operations:                    60934  (1015.38 per sec.)

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          60.0110s
    total number of events:              30467
    total time taken by event execution: 479.9124
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  5.75ms
         avg:                                 15.75ms
         max:                                138.57ms
         approx.  95 percentile:              25.10ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           3808.3750/8.70
    execution time (avg/stddev):   59.9891/0.00

Results

The quick index added 20% extra throughput on queries 🙂

Don’t forget to delete your test database

DROP DATABASE `test`;

Viewing MySQL Index Usage (on the “test” database)

Query to show Index stats for a table ‘test’

SELECT
 OBJECT_SCHEMA as 'Database', OBJECT_NAME as 'Table', 
 INDEX_NAME as 'Index', 
 COUNT_STAR, 
 SUM_TIMER_WAIT,  MIN_TIMER_WAIT, AVG_TIMER_WAIT, MAX_TIMER_WAIT, 
 COUNT_READ, 
 SUM_TIMER_READ, MIN_TIMER_READ, AVG_TIMER_READ, MAX_TIMER_READ,  
 COUNT_FETCH, SUM_TIMER_FETCH, MIN_TIMER_FETCH, AVG_TIMER_FETCH, MAX_TIMER_FETCH
FROM 
 performance_schema.table_io_waits_summary_by_index_usage
WHERE 
 object_schema = 'test'

I can see the MySQL PRIMARY index is getting used 🙂

Read more in viewable query stats (columns) here.

Other System Information Tools

Show processor information

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Output

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 61
model name      : Virtual CPU a7769a6388d5
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x1
cpu MHz         : 2394.454
cache size      : 16384 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 1
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl xtopology eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm invpcid_single kaiser fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid xsaveopt arat
bugs            : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips        : 4788.90
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Memory Information

You can assign 512MB, 1GB, 2GB or more memory to a server on Vultr, Read my guide here on upgrading resources for Vultr VM’s here.

Only upgrade your server’s memory when server processes demand it, there is no need to pay for extra idle memory. Read my older guides on upgrading Digital Ocean and AWS servers.

I use the htop utility to monitor memory and processes. The memory usage will depend on how you have configured your server to use connection pools in code, MySQL or services. Also what memory demands do you get in pean bandwidth times?

You can check your server memory details on Ubuntu with this command

cat /proc/meminfo

Output

MemTotal:        2048104 kB
MemFree:           96176 kB
MemAvailable:     693072 kB
Buffers:          183476 kB
Cached:           526124 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:          1467220 kB
Inactive:         243228 kB
Active(anon):    1070464 kB
Inactive(anon):    27004 kB
Active(file):     396756 kB
Inactive(file):   216224 kB
Unevictable:        3652 kB
Mlocked:            3652 kB
SwapTotal:             0 kB
SwapFree:              0 kB
Dirty:                64 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:       1004504 kB
Mapped:           114664 kB
Shmem:             94192 kB
Slab:             192692 kB
SReclaimable:     171892 kB
SUnreclaim:        20800 kB
KernelStack:        3072 kB
PageTables:        20528 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     1024052 kB
Committed_AS:    2424332 kB
VmallocTotal:   34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed:           0 kB
VmallocChunk:          0 kB
HardwareCorrupted:     0 kB
AnonHugePages:    247808 kB
CmaTotal:              0 kB
CmaFree:               0 kB
HugePages_Total:       0
HugePages_Free:        0
HugePages_Rsvd:        0
HugePages_Surp:        0
Hugepagesize:       2048 kB
DirectMap4k:       67440 kB
DirectMap2M:     2029568 kB

Use Memory or Disk (Swap)

You can configure the use of Memory over Disk by configuring your/etc/sysctl.conf file (setting value “vm.swappiness”)

You can check your swap file settings by running the following command

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
1

Or By running

sysctl vm.swappiness
vm.swappiness = 1

Set a new swap file value by editing /etc/sysctl.conf

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Set the following to use more ram over the swap disk.

vm.swappiness = 1

Read about swappiness values here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swappiness

Service Performance

Performance (and allocated resources) depends on the demands of your operating system and installed software

What operating system do you have?

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
Release:        16.04
Codename:       xenial

View NGINX Status, how much memory does it use?

/etc/init.d/nginx status
● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2018-05-25 21:28:25 AEST; 1 weeks 3 days ago
     Docs: man:nginx(8)
 Main PID: #### (nginx)
    Tasks: 3
   Memory: 58.9M
      CPU: 33min 11.515s
   CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
           ├─#### nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;
           ├─#### nginx: worker process
           └─#### nginx: cache manager process

PHP (and Child Worker) status how much memory does it use and how many child workers do you have? Read my add PHP child workers post here (and update to PHP 7.2 here)

sudo service php7.2-fpm status
● php7.2-fpm.service - The PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.2-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2018-05-25 21:28:26 AEST; 1 weeks 3 days ago
     Docs: man:php-fpm7.2(8)
 Main PID: #### (php-fpm7.2)
   Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 20, Requests: 75911, slow: 0, Traffic: 0.1req/sec"
    Tasks: 21
   Memory: 694.2M
      CPU: 20h 49min 45.132s
   CGroup: /system.slice/php7.2-fpm.service
           ├─ #### php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.2/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-acc
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-acc
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           ├─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr
           └─ #### php-fpm: pool www-usr

MySQL Status

sudo service mysql status
● mysql.service - MySQL Community Server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mysql.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2018-05-25 21:28:27 AEST; 1 weeks 3 days ago
 Main PID: ##### (mysqld)
    Tasks: 35
   Memory: 405.9M
      CPU: 2h 17min 31.822s
   CGroup: /system.slice/mysql.service
           └─#### /usr/sbin/mysqld

Shared VM Hosts

One of the biggest impacts (after server latency) for your server is not the disk performance but the number of hosts/websites on the server who are also using the disk and server resources.

I have 80 other web servers on my server (based on a reverse lookup).

I may move to a dedicated box when I can afford it.

Security

Above all else ensure that security is number 1 priority and make performance second priority.

Scan your site with Zap, Qualys and Kali Linux. Performance means nothing if you are hacked.

Simulated concurrent users

You can use Siege to test the maximum concurrent users accessing your site before the server starts to drop connections.

FYI: If you use Cloudflare (you should) this may not work as it will block connections.

Install Siege

sudo apt-get install siege

Test your server with 10 concurrent serves for 1 minute

siege -t1m c10 'https://yourserver.com/'

Results

siege -t1m c10 'https://yourserver.com/'
** SIEGE 3.0.8
** Preparing 15 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege...
Lifting the server siege...      done.

Transactions:                    417 hits
Availability:                 100.00 %
Elapsed time:                  59.01 secs
Data transferred:               8.24 MB
Response time:                  1.62 secs
Transaction rate:               7.07 trans/sec
Throughput:                     0.14 MB/sec
Concurrency:                   11.46
Successful transactions:         417
Failed transactions:               0
Longest transaction:            2.26
Shortest transaction:           1.49

Keep upping the connections (from 10 above) to a limit where connections start dropping.

I tried 25 then 50 concurrent users hitting a server on Digital Ocean and it did not fail.

Conclusion

Choose a server near your customers
Change hosts if one is faster and cheaper
Measure or benchmark your server (and compare over time).
Use Cloudflare

Create your own server today

Create your own server on Vultr here.
Create your own server on Digital Ocean here.
Create your own server on UpCloud here.

And remember you can install the Runcloud server management dashboard here.

I hope this guide helps someone.

< Previous

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

Measuring VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 3 of 4

June 5, 2018 by Simon

How can you measure VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 3 of 4

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

I used these commands to generate bonnie++ reports from the data in part 2

echo "<h1>Bonnie Results</h1>" > /www-data/bonnie.html
echo "<h2>Vultr (Sydney)</h2>" >> /www-data/bonnie.html
echo "1.97,1.97,servername,1,1528177870,4G,,656,99,308954,68,113706,33,1200,92,188671,30,10237,251,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,26067us,119ms,179ms,29139us,26069us,16118us,1463us,703us,880us,263us,119us,593us" | bon_csv2html >> /www-data/bonnie.html
echo "<h2>Digital Ocean (London)</h2>" >> /www-data/bonnie.html
echo "1.97,1.97,servername,1,1528186398,4G,,699,99,778636,74,610414,60,1556,99,1405337,59,+++++,+++,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,17678us,10099us,17014us,7027us,3067us,2366us,1243us,376us,611us,108us,59us,181us" | bon_csv2html >> /www-data/bonnie.html
echo "<h2>UpCloud (Singapore)</h2>" >> /www-data/bonnie.html
echo "1.97,1.97,servername,1,1528226703,4G,,1014,99,407179,24,366622,32,2137,99,451886,17,+++++,+++,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,11297us,54232us,16443us,4949us,44883us,1595us,264us,340us,561us,138us,66us,327us" | bon_csv2html >> /www-data/bonnie.html

Image of results here

Network Performace

IMHO Network Latency is the biggest impact on server performance, Read my old post on scalability on a budget here. I am in Australia an having a server in Singapore was too far away and latency was terrible.

Here is a non-scientific example of pinging a Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud server in three different locations (and Google).

Test Ping Results

Vultr 132ms Ping Average (Sydney)
Digital Ocean 322ms Ping Average (London)
UpCloud 180ms Ping Average (Singapore)

Latency matters, run a https://www.webpagetest.org/ scan over your site to see why.

Adding https added almost 0.7 seconds to https communications in the past on Digital Ocean (a few thousand kilometres away). The longer the latency the longer HTTPS handshakes take.

Deploying a server to Singapore (in my experience) is bad if your visitors are in Australia. But deploying to other regions may be lower in cost though. It’s a trade-off.

Deploy servers as close as you can to your customers is the best tip for performance.

Also, consider setting up Image Optimization and Image CDN plugins (guide here) in WordPress and using Cloudflare (guide here)

Benchmarking with SysBench

Install CPU Benchmark

sudo apt-get install sysbench

CPU Benchmark (Vultr/Sydney)

Result

sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1

Doing CPU performance benchmark

Threads started!
Done.

Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 20000


Test execution summary:
    total time:                          39.1700s
    total number of events:              10000
    total time taken by event execution: 39.1586
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  2.90ms
         avg:                                  3.92ms
         max:                                 20.44ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               7.43ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           10000.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   39.1586/0.00

39.15 seconds

CPU Benchmark (Digital Ocean/London)

sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 run

Result

sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1

Doing CPU performance benchmark

Threads started!
Done.

Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 20000


Test execution summary:
    total time:                          33.4382s
    total number of events:              10000
    total time taken by event execution: 33.4352
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  3.24ms
         avg:                                  3.34ms
         max:                                  6.45ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               3.45ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           10000.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   33.4352/0.00

33.43 sec

CPU Benchmark (UpCloud/Singapore)

sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 run

Result

sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1



Doing CPU performance benchmark

Threads started!
Done.

Maximum prime number checked in CPU test: 20000


Test execution summary:
    total time:                          23.7809s
    total number of events:              10000
    total time taken by event execution: 23.7780
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  2.35ms
         avg:                                  2.38ms
         max:                                  6.92ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               2.46ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           10000.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   23.7780/0.00

23.77 sec

Surprisingly, 1st place in prime generation goes to UpCloud, then Digital Ocean then Vultr. UpCloud has some good processors.

Processors:

UpCLoud (Singapore): Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v4 @ 3.00GHz
Digital Ocean (London): Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L v2 @ 2.40GHz
Vultr (Sydney): Virtual CPU a7769a6388d5 (Masked/Hidden CPU @ 2.40GHz)

(Lower is better)

(oops, typo in the chart should say Vultr)

Benchmark the file IO

Confirm free space

df -h /

Install Sysbench

sudo apt-get install sysbench

I had 10GB free on all servers (Vultr, Digitial Ocean and UpCloud) so I created a 10GB test file.

sysbench --test=fileio --file-total-size=10G prepare
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

128 files, 81920Kb each, 10240Mb total
Creating files for the test...

Now I can run the benchmark and use the pre-created text file.

sysbench --test=fileio --file-total-size=10G --file-test-mode=rndrw --init-rng=on --max-time=300 --max-requests=0 run

SysBench description from the Ubuntu manpage.

“SysBench is a modular, cross-platform and multi-threaded benchmark tool for evaluating OS parameters that are important for a system running a database under intensive load. The idea of this benchmark suite is to quickly get an impression about system performance without setting up complex database benchmarks or even without installing a database at all.”

SysBench Results (Vultr/Sydney)

sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1
Initializing random number generator from timer.


Extra file open flags: 0
128 files, 80Mb each
10Gb total file size
Block size 16Kb
Number of random requests for random IO: 0
Read/Write ratio for combined random IO test: 1.50
Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
Using synchronous I/O mode
Doing random r/w test
Threads started!
Time limit exceeded, exiting...
Done.

Operations performed:  385920 Read, 257280 Write, 823266 Other = 1466466 Total
Read 5.8887Gb  Written 3.9258Gb  Total transferred 9.8145Gb  (33.5Mb/sec)
 2143.98 Requests/sec executed

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          300.0026s
    total number of events:              643200
    total time taken by event execution: 182.4249
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  0.01ms
         avg:                                  0.28ms
         max:                                 18.12ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               0.55ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           643200.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   182.4249/0.00

SysBench Results (Digital Ocean/London)

sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1
Initializing random number generator from timer.


Extra file open flags: 0
128 files, 80Mb each
10Gb total file size
Block size 16Kb
Number of random requests for random IO: 0
Read/Write ratio for combined random IO test: 1.50
Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
Using synchronous I/O mode
Doing random r/w test
Threads started!
Time limit exceeded, exiting...
Done.

Operations performed:  944280 Read, 629520 Write, 2014432 Other = 3588232 Total
Read 14.409Gb  Written 9.6057Gb  Total transferred 24.014Gb  (81.968Mb/sec)
 5245.96 Requests/sec executed

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          300.0024s
    total number of events:              1573800
    total time taken by event execution: 160.5558
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  0.00ms
         avg:                                  0.10ms
         max:                                 18.62ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               0.34ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           1573800.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   160.5558/0.00

SysBench Results (UpCloud/Singapore)

sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1
Initializing random number generator from timer.


Extra file open flags: 0
128 files, 80Mb each
10Gb total file size
Block size 16Kb
Number of random requests for random IO: 0
Read/Write ratio for combined random IO test: 1.50
Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
Using synchronous I/O mode
Doing random r/w test
Threads started!
Time limit exceeded, exiting...
Done.

Operations performed:  994320 Read, 662880 Write, 2121090 Other = 3778290 Total
Read 15.172Gb  Written 10.115Gb  Total transferred 25.287Gb  (86.312Mb/sec)
 5523.97 Requests/sec executed

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          300.0016s
    total number of events:              1657200
    total time taken by event execution: 107.4434
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  0.00ms
         avg:                                  0.06ms
         max:                                 15.43ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               0.13ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           1657200.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   107.4434/0.00

Comparison

sysbench fileio results (text)

Read

Vultr (Sydney): 385,920
Digital Ocean (London): 944,280
UpCloud (Singapore): 944,320

Write

Vultr (Sydney): 823,266
Digital Ocean (London): 629,520
UpCloud (Singapore): 662,880

Other

Vultr (Sydney): 1,466,466
Digital Ocean (London): 3,588,232
UpCloud (Singapore): 2,121,090

Total Read Gb

Vultr (Sydney): 5.8887 Gb
Digital Ocean (London): 14.409 Gb
UpCloud (Singapore): 15.172 Gb

Total Written Gb

Vultr (Sydney): 3.9258 Gb
Digital Ocean (London): 9.6057 Gb
UpCloud (Singapore): 10.115 Gb

Total Transferred Gb

Vultr (Sydney): 9.8145 Gb
Digital Ocean (London): 24.014 Gb
UpCloud (Singapore): 25.287 Gb

Now I can remove test file io benchmark file

sysbench --test=fileio --file-total-size=2=10G cleanup
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Removing test files...

Confirm the test file has been deleted

df -h /
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        40G   16G   23G  41% /

Bonus: Benchmark MySQL (on my main server (Vultr) not on Digital Ocean and UpCLoud)

I tried to run a command

sysbench --test=oltp --oltp-table-size=1000000 --db-driver=mysql --mysql-db=test --mysql-user=root --mysql-password=#################################### prepare
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

FATAL: unable to connect to MySQL server, aborting...
FATAL: error 1049: Unknown database 'test'
FATAL: failed to connect to database server!

To fix the error I created a test table with Adminer (guide here).

< Previous – Next >

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

Measuring VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 2 of 4

June 5, 2018 by Simon

How can you measure VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 2 of 4

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

Measure Disk Performance with Bonnie++

Installing Bonnie++ on Ubuntu

apt-get install bonnie++

Read this. post on using Bonnie++

Benchmark disk IO with DD and Bonnie++

Starting Bonnie++

bonnie++ -d /tmp -r 2048 -u username

Bonnie++ Readme.

Disk io with bonnie++ on Vultr/Sydney

Writing a byte at a time...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading a byte at a time...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP
servername 4G 656 99 308954 68 113706 33 1200 92 188671 30 10237 251
Latency 26067us 119ms 179ms 29139us 26069us 16118us
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
servername -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
16 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++
Latency 1463us 703us 880us 263us 119us 593us
1.97,1.97,servername,1,1528177870,4G,,656,99,308954,68,113706,33,1200,92,188671,30,10237,251,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,26067us,119ms,179ms,29139us,26069us,16118us,1463us,703us,880us,263us,119us,593us

Disk io with bonnie++ on Digital Ocean/London

Writing a byte at a time...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading a byte at a time...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP
servername 4G 699 99 778636 74 610414 60 1556 99 1405337 59 +++++ +++
Latency 17678us 10099us 17014us 7027us 3067us 2366us
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
servername -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
16 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++
Latency 1243us 376us 611us 108us 59us 181us
1.97,1.97,servername,1,1528186398,4G,,699,99,778636,74,610414,60,1556,99,1405337,59,+++++,+++,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,17678us,10099us,17014us,7027us,3067us,2366us,1243us,376us,611us,108us,59us,181us

Disk io with bonnie++ on UpCloud/Singapore

Writing a byte at a time...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading a byte at a time...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP
servername 4G 1014 99 407179 24 366622 32 2137 99 451886 17 +++++ +++
Latency 11297us 54232us 16443us 4949us 44883us 1595us
Version 1.97 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
servername -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
16 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++
Latency 264us 340us 561us 138us 66us 327us
1.97,1.97,servername,1,1528226703,4G,,1014,99,407179,24,366622,32,2137,99,451886,17,+++++,+++,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,11297us,54232us,16443us,4949us,44883us,1595us,264us,340us,561us,138us,66us,327us

Now read this site on how to make sense of this data

< Previous – Next >

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

Measuring VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 1 of 4

June 2, 2018 by Simon

How can you measure VM performance (CPU, Disk, Latency, Concurrent Users etc) on Ubuntu and comparing Vultr, Digital Ocean and UpCloud – Part 1 of 4. Update: I moved my domain to UpCloud.

Update (June 2018): I moved my domain to UpCloud (they are that awesome). Use this link to signup and get $25 free credit. Read the steps I took to move my domain to UpCloud here.

Comparing Digital Ocean/Vultr and UpCloud Disk IO

I have a number of guides on moving away from CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean (all in the search of extra performance) but how do you know when a server performance is ok apart from running GT Metrix and other external site benchmarking tools.

This post is split up as it was too long.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

Spoiler: It all depends on where your server is located and what you do with it (Tweaks will improve the performance).

P.S This is NOT a paid endorsement or conclusive test (just a quick benchmark/review).

What does your server do?

You need to know what your server does 24/7 and what resources the services need.

I use htop to view real-time and historical usage data for each process.

Tweaking Advice

A friend gave me good advice re-tweaking a cheap host to get good performance

yeah but you are trying to get speed out of budget hosting. Good, fast, cheap, pick 2.

— Kerry Hoath (@khoath) June 2, 2018

I am not a fan of just throwing more money at a host and expecting better performance. Host have unique features and cons., there is no shortage of hosts or host cons.

How can you run synthetic benchmarks to determine comparable performance metrics?

WARNING: Comparing synthetic benchmarks can be far removed from real-world speeds. Benchmark results below were from 3 different servers I have on 3 different hosts in three different locations (the only thing the same was the use of Ubuntu 16.04 $5/m servers). These results are not scientific and should not be used to compare host providers. Benchmark runs were one-off (not averages over multiple timezones/days).

Disk Performance

Speaking of disk performance I noticed this the other day on the RunCloud blog. Faster than SSD (UpCloud)?

UpCloud Faster-than-SSD Cloud Hosting Server (Promo Code Inside)

Runcloud is a server management console that can interface with your domains (read my old review here). I don’t use Runcloud but it is great for those who need a GUI to help manage VM via a dashboard. However, I prefer to know what is going on under the hood. I have investigated webmin in the past though.

Let’s do a quick IO benchmark test between UpCloud, Digital Ocean and Vultr on similarly low end $5/m servers,

Good advice on command line benchmarking tools from a friend.

depends on what sort of load you want to simulate. iozone is old but reliable. bonny might give you more figures you want.

— Kerry Hoath (@khoath) June 2, 2018

Installing iozone to test disk performance

I searched for a post on using iozone (Thanks thegeekstuff). I will be reviewing the “Writer report” and “Reader report”. Read more about iozone here.

View the iozone page for how to break down results.

(image snip from http://www.iozone.org/)

Install iozone on Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install iozone3

Run an iozone disk test and output the results to a spreadsheet.

iozone -a -b iozone.xls

Now let’s run a Read/Write test on Vultr/Digital Ocean and UpCloud. Multiple runs were not performed, this is not a scientific test (just a simple benchmark test (as is, ignoring sever load and local infrastructure/timezone load)).

iozone Benchmark results for Vultr “Read” (Sydney)

	“4”	“8”	“16”	“32”	“64”	“128”	“256”	“512”	“1024”	“2048”	“4096”	“8192”	“16384”
64	2133730	3363612	4274062	4564786	6421025
128	2248149	3536566	4135958	7082197	4135958	11720614
256	1884399	2699161	3879045	3667079	5971678	5687020	5687020
512	3140488	3736016	3684733	4262523	4610256	2638816	5067142	5684095
1024	1617808	1939207	3411938	3999762	4048778	4614246	3083680	5885083	6609617
2048	1926510	2569678	4423683	4997618	3937075	459605	2896324	3542524	4971585	4707314
4096	1701683	2151300	4209920	5001700	4751325	4869845	5389246	3647681	4928521	6207035	4347346
8192	2063424	2329346	3203763	2937280	3221485	3232699	3626431	3650706	3789200	4110603	3715045	4350542
16384	1738553	2778362	3397613	3679205	3693442	3171501	3524291	3393586	3004024	3552531	3456574	2693845	2488861
32768	0	0	0	0	2952894	3537153	3574875	3768155	4719613	3890280	3394995	2735222	2542914
65536	0	0	0	0	4057489	3610789	3619967	3800078	3275327	3591212	3607188	1770426	2826659
131072	0	0	0	0	3552270	1890742	5275167	3727339	3527607	1753893	3234736	2341111	1378601
262144	0	0	0	0	3798586	1302021	1491429	3712825	3228816	3757963	3715510	2592485	2481061
524288	0	0	0	0	2758756	2487923	3705741	1807328	2118309	3675988	3196367	3394330	2396842

iozone Benchmark results for Digital Ocean “Read” (London)

	4	“8”	“16”	“32”	“64”	“128”	“256”	“512”	“1024”	“2048”	“4096”	“8192”	“16384”
64	4564786	7100397	9006179	10402178	12902017
128	4717434	7082197	8548124	9795896	10567140	10779307
256	4840911	7073132	8271916	9868433	10148242	10651598	1E+07
512	4742616	6909408	8140399	9304292	9638369	10044089	1E+07	10044089
1024	4249053	5917516	6208343	7537599	9300377	10454984	7E+06	7113161	9946527
2048	3885431	6967792	6603549	6845629	10401883	9808036	9E+06	7903836	9308497	7817519
4096	2506983	5953231	6263611	6953144	7774379	6225028	6E+06	8081580	7683972	8081580	8240513
8192	3665114	4850463	5479317	6141364	6277120	6108608	6E+06	6569983	5732541	7166033	6633402	5479317
16384	3673501	4828584	5416182	6187150	6614761	6298872	6E+06	6430310	5984033	6402750	6046159	4791883	3405527
32768	0	0	0	0	4692542	6140929	6E+06	6295642	5231224	6545707	5781108	4513475	3702577
65536	0	0	0	0	6315430	5830131	6E+06	6444695	6219125	6473838	5338595	4248118	3679324
131072	0	0	0	0	6130002	6461496	6E+06	5958068	5983423	6387547	6138078	3994888	3602079
262144	0	0	0	0	6456746	6323727	6E+06	6504146	6390176	6486151	6433963	3955165	3654188
524288	0	0	0	0	1667337	6381456	6E+06	6445708	6448714	6421071	5981200	4155185	3770740

iozone Benchmark results for UpCloud “Read” (Singapore)

	“4”	“8”	“16”	“32”	“64”	“128”	“256”	“512”	“1024”	“2048”	“4096”	“8192”	“16384”
64	6421025	6421025	10821524	12902017	15972885
128	4889281	6406138	9129573	10779307	14200794	14200794
256	5320671	3879045	10758322	8815202	10245071	12812277	12228612
512	4305250	5115422	8844453	8234036	7091952	8394979	7540170	10235583
1024	4339202	4762630	5821271	6163794	6819511	4674510	6479979	8183918	10230845
2048	4204968	5319484	5800851	5816563	6243566	6378005	5953632	6851089	7940367	8229438
4096	4526013	5556581	4817948	5404504	7301864	5759634	5810280	6007355	6919538	8620945	6281934
8192	4298295	5019093	5927357	6036702	6781341	6082655	5855636	6527546	6553692	6792065	6466126	4437634
16384	4282172	5849558	6313919	6635840	6741958	6657054	6423097	5536622	6558575	6442970	4527032	3784777	3901898
32768	0	0	0	0	5825460	5423408	6504198	6665385	6365329	6426343	5263076	3718605	3705971
65536	0	0	0	0	6908075	6623116	6493259	6609738	6311805	6483610	5489674	4035982	3561526
131072	0	0	0	0	5650180	5718949	2465429	5391253	3495911	5784844	5367408	3733490	3582175
262144	0	0	0	0	6814627	6691250	6189661	5906786	6081645	5799913	5247919	4121250	3637601
524288	0	0	0	0	6404764	6309263	5673979	5751609	6288245	6305103	5978680	3911984	3767116

iozone Benchmark results for Vultr “Write” (Sydney)

	“4”	“8”	“16”	“32”	“64”	“128”	“256”	“512”	“1024”	“2048”	“4096”	“8192”	“16384”
64	289322	532815	507625	429630	566551
128	398921	465304	434078	417212	669577	821147
256	530031	613985	820398	474937	891956	815414	370025
512	387576	754083	709019	819085	702295	609421	924123	496091
1024	297233	448522	716089	923488	854073	817340	1203137	1072453	601636
2048	408697	634655	695383	1358134	549657	1295458	821154	797520	964207	258493
4096	236150	433804	1215774	1245025	820832	809958	1371339	914269	921083	1004682	1481431
8192	611113	666677	806286	715219	779825	824294	875947	870091	1046378	791192	1023592	453248
16384	435454	706149	718313	845499	893495	888068	812778	842885	820591	941120	839610	862672	406590
32768	0	0	0	0	465196	786067	938881	627294	890917	968147	872369	871329	842843
65536	0	0	0	0	515057	790172	937568	915601	897235	867197	907562	852002	743856
131072	0	0	0	0	501091	480492	813147	870886	880239	805333	684630	1117578	633185
262144	0	0	0	0	387126	323185	323656	473258	405744	369599	422554	468992	453563
524288	0	0	0	0	325588	380450	392965	451608	303255	355148	386250	432054	416512

iozone Benchmark results for Digital Ocean “Write” (London)

	“4”	“8”	“16”	“32”	“64”	“128”	“256”	“512”	“1024”	“2048”	“4096”	“8192”	“16384”
64	831569	566551	1279447	1363961	1392258
128	652488	1319723	1421023	990891	1663139	1561553
256	1185399	1152323	1534342	1598292	1826695	1707589	1514860
512	1166599	1296159	1399189	1620980	1620980	1361920	1589779	1672748
1024	1079190	1321200	1584972	1917562	1592612	1701108	1718120	1462960	1643814
2048	1210394	1470172	1621719	1550584	1796378	1643753	1713598	1759581	1649117	1488257
4096	916513	1287575	1574718	1406594	1742237	1734148	1652418	1583280	1599346	1661045	1533532
8192	1109745	1318748	1178567	1544201	1502340	1371492	1466747	1499521	1479759	1564878	1291292	1347609
16384	1106205	1282084	1374037	1503649	1429398	1461407	1496119	1578132	1547289	1333431	1203371	1198815	1501316
32768	0	0	0	0	1270914	1406589	1513114	1468226	1558303	1552038	1516336	1443280	1440360
65536	0	0	0	0	1319322	1327984	1311504	1411955	1266988	1359645	1386446	1347092	1368295
131072	0	0	0	0	1100658	1229326	1227197	1318631	1265552	1233306	1227747	1237896	1233502
262144	0	0	0	0	1167160	1064078	1155828	1185185	1086152	1193673	1080872	1062611	1141960
524288	0	0	0	0	977835	1124816	1052757	1219183	1128972	1140177	1091954	1141635	1132063

iozone Benchmark results for UpCloud “Write” (Singapore)

	“8”	“16”	“32”	“64”	“128”	“256”	“512”	“1024”	“2048”	“4096”	“8192”	“16384”
64	1143223	1255511	1562436	1452528	1279447
128	1451764	1406136	1543594	1504659	1852520	1749872
256	1642294	1829808	1970871	1855098	1802167	1952947	2000242
512	1537424	1854787	1801873	2294796	1983258	2124526	1895721	1417662
1024	1434138	1553442	1609925	1931359	2098375	2044438	1872419	1768345	1892218
2048	1562145	1901771	1817281	1848169	1967097	1296240	2267786	2081497	1915768	2007554
4096	1625372	1966378	1924741	1342092	1950306	2078175	1914873	1459656	1995152	2102849	1326855
8192	1444062	1808330	1956503	1924397	2127300	2042328	2135630	1986478	2062557	2061319	1337016	1812049
16384	1667066	1820248	1898495	2051339	2012530	2111080	2119806	1491217	2060875	1974254	1934789	1815823	1921911
32768	0	0	0	0	2057506	1454537	2075621	2070899	1869795	2052896	1892347	1855382	1873440
65536	0	0	0	0	2067127	2077673	2088994	2179809	2087471	2099108	1904723	1642505	1832204
131072	0	0	0	0	1234663	1824959	1304340	1775514	1287481	1560379	1631992	1085609	1675467
262144	0	0	0	0	685774	808487	823824	662524	681762	548308	814946	645663	732176
524288	0	0	0	0	547296	517384	503422	521173	538714	518429	528950	529593	512944

Here is my quick unscientific take on a one-pass benchmark results above.

These results need some decoding.

Next >>

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4

Ask a question or recommend an article

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Update (June 2018): I moved my domain to UpCloud (they are that awesome). Use this link to signup and get $25 free credit. Read the steps I took to move my domain to UpCloud here.

Revision History

v1.2 added the fact that I Moved to UpCloud.

v1.1 Re ran iozone -a -b iozone.xls on all servers.

v1.0 Initial post

Moving an Ubuntu 16.04 VM on Vultr from one data centre to another via snapshots

April 17, 2018 by Simon

This guide will show how you can move an Ubuntu VM server domain between Vultr data centres via snapshots.

I have a number of guides on moving away from CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line. Sometimes you need to move a sever between locations and/or upgrade the server (to have more memory t install WordPress).

Moving an existing Vultr server

If you don’t have an Ubuntu server click here (follow this guide).

Login to Vultr and specify a source server, click Snapshots and click Take Snapshot.

Wait for the snapshot to finish (It may take 1 hour).

Great, the snapshot is done.

Now I can create a new server (in a different data centre).

Deploy New Instance

Choose a location (Australia is at capacity, so I’ll deploy to Silicon Valley then move again in a few weeks), choose the snapshot to restore, choose a plan, I enabled IPV6/Auto Backups and Private Networking.

TIP: The password for the server will be the same as the source server so write it down.

Click Deploy Now

After a few minutes, you can see the new servers IP address, you can log in to your domain name provider (in my case Namecheap) and update the target IPV4 and IPV6 address.

You can find IPV4 and IPV6 addresses by opening your server, clicking settings then IPxV4 or IPV6.

You will need to update Vultr DNS settings (login to Vultr, Click Servers, Click DNS then edit your existing Domain DNS entry). Add you’re new serves IP addresses.

Update: I added an IPV6/AAAA record too.

Wait for DNS Replication

Goto https://www.whatsmydns.net/ and check the global DNS propagation for your new domain’s server.

If you are happy that the server has been migrated (snapshot restored) and that the domain DNS is pointing to your new server you can delete the old server in the Vultr server list.

Post-Migrate Actions

Setup Daily backups.
Review firewall settings (guide here).
Optional: Install MySQL
Optional: Install PHP
Optional: Install PHP Pooled Connections
Optional: Install WordPress
Optional: Install WordPress CDN
Optional: Configure Cloudflare
etc

I hope this guide helps someone.

Ask a question or recommend an article

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Revision History

v1.1 Vultr Link

v1.0 Initial post

Enabling TLS 1.3 SSL on a NGINX Website (Ubuntu 16.04 server) that is using Cloudflare

April 5, 2018 by Simon

This guide will show you how to enable the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 protocol with it’s predecessor Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) with NGINX and OpenSSL for better website security on an Ubuntu 16.04 server

I have a number of guides on moving hasting away form CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line. Making sure your server is up to date and running the latest SSL software is important. I have updated Open SSL before and blogged about this here. Do back up your server before changing settings and if you use Cloudflare (if you don’t do it now) enable Development Mode (and disable caching until changes are made).

For the best performing VM host (UpCloud) read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).

TLS 1.3 is the latest SSL security protocol that can be used between clients and servers to encrypt connections on the web.

TLS 1.3 uptake is only 60% according to https://caniuse.com/#search=TLS%201.3

Read why TLS 1.3 is important and news on TLS 1.3 can be found here: https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2018/02/08/tlsv1.3/

The Good and Bad

Done be like this commercial site with very poor security (tested with SSL labs and asafaweb)

Here is what the top 1 million sites do

Here it is!! Alexa Top 1 Million Analysis – February 2018 https://t.co/TjBHNX7zTi

— Scott Helme (@Scott_Helme) February 26, 2018

Installing Open SSL on Ubuntu

Connect to your Ubuntu 16.04 server via SSH (I connected to my Vultr server)

Check what version of OpenSSL you have? My OpenSSL is out of date.

# openssl version
OpenSSL 1.1.0g  2 Nov 2017

Tip: What Ciphers does your Open SSL Support?

openssl ciphers -s -v
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=CHACHA20/POLY1305(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=CHACHA20/POLY1305(256) Mac=AEAD
DHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=CHACHA20/POLY1305(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA384
ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA384
DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256   TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA256
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256   TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA  TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA    TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA  TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA    TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
AES256-GCM-SHA384       TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
AES128-GCM-SHA256       TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
AES256-SHA256           TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA256
AES128-SHA256           TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
AES256-SHA              SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
AES128-SHA              SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1

Time to update Open SSL

OpenSSL 1.1.1 beta is available and supports TLS 1.3 but it is n BETA form. OpenSSL code is available here.

I did the following to download and build the latest version of OpenSSL.

mkdir /openssltemp
cd /openssltemp
sudo git clone git://git.openssl.org/openssl.git
cd openssl/
./config --prefix=/usr/local/ssl --openssldir=/usr/local/ssl -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/ssl/lib
make
sudo make install

I tried to check the open SSL version but had an error?

openssl version 
openssl: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.1: version `OPENSSL_1_1_1' not found (required by openssl)
openssl: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.1: version `OPENSSL_1_1_1' not found (required by openssl)

A quick GitHub ticket revealed I needed to set a path variable.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
echo "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/bin/openssl" >> ~/.bashrc

Open SSL now reports it’s version.

openssl version
OpenSSL 1.1.1-pre3 (beta) 20 Mar 2018

What version NGINX do you have (1.13 supports TLS 1.3) read here

# nginx -v
nginx version: nginx/1.13.9

Backup your NGINX

Do backup your server files and take a snapshot if need be. I am not responsible;e for a broken server,

sudo cp -R /etc/nginx/ /nginx-backup-26thMar-2018

Edit NGINX Configuration

Update NGINX configuration: /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

ssl_ciphers ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_ecdh_curve secp384r1;

tip: Review other NGINX hardening settings here. Also remove TLSv1.0

I tested my NGINX config loaded them and restarted NGINX

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

Check the status of NGINX

# /etc/init.d/nginx status

[ ok ] Restarting nginx (via systemctl): nginx.service.
● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) 
     Docs: man:nginx(8)
  Process: 15154 ExecStop=/sbin/start-stop-daemon --quiet --stop --retry QUIT/5 --pidfile /run/nginx.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 15162 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 15159 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 15166 (nginx)
    Tasks: 4
   Memory: 2.3M
      CPU: 27ms
   CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
           ├─15166 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;
           ├─15170 nginx: worker process
           ├─15171 nginx: cache manager process
           └─15172 nginx: cache loader process

If you have configured Cloudflare then log in and enable TLS support.

Enable TLS 1.3 in Chrome by visiting chrome://flags/#tls13-variant This should be automatic in later versions of Chrome and other browsers.

Verify TLS

I used the developer tools in Chrome to confirm the page was verified in TLS 1.3.

Updated to 1.1.1-pre6-dev

mkdir /temp
cd /temp
sudo git clone https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git
cd openssl/
./config --prefix=/usr/local --openssldir=/usr/local -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local
make
sudo make install
openssl
OpenSSL> version
OpenSSL 1.1.1-pre6-dev  xx XXX xxxx
OpenSSL> exit

Don’t forget to test your SSL strength with https://dev.ssllabs.com/ssltest/

I hope this guide helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.4 fixed typo

v1.3 added bad ssl cert.

v1.2 ssl test v1.1 updated to 1.1.1-pre6-dev

v1.0 Initial post

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