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All along, even before Slicehost, I have had trouble dealing with traffic spikes on my web server. I’ve used WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. I’ve used XCache for PHP code caching, and for my WordPress object cache. I’ve configured Apache to set caching headers for static files using mod_expires to reduce requests. But I still get load and memory spikes that grind my server into dust. That shouldn’t happen with only 200 visitors per hour (granted, a page view can generate about 50 HTTP requests). Obviously, I’ve configured my server poorly.

Like many large PHP applications, WordPress can be a bit hungry for memory. So when it fights against MySQL and an in-memory object cache for resources, things can start to get dicey. And of course, I’ve got a few other things on the server. When I get hit by a traffic spike (popular article, spammer runs, errant search spiders, etc), memory goes away fast. The machine starts to swap, things get slow, load average spikes as processes begin to wait for resources, and it all snowballs. I’ve got some homemade scripts that keep an eye on things and attempt to restart various services in order to force things back into line, but it’s a pretty heavy-handed way to deal with the problem.

In my new setup, here’s what I’m doing to fix it:

* I’ll be running Apache, MySQL, and Memcached all on separate servers, instead of together on one host.
* I’m switching from the Apache pre-forking model to the threaded worker model.
* I’m switching from mod_php to FastCGI (mod_fcgid) and php-cgi.

There will probably be other tweaks, as well, but those are the biggies. I’m expecting this new setup to handle waaaay more requests than the old one. Oh, and I’m definitely open to any pointers from performance tuning gurus. Please share links and tips!

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Thirty Three Things Every Blogger Should Do After Installing WordPress

After installing WordPress, most new users ask “What Next?”. Creating and maintaining a WordPress powered blog is simple. However, many new users are often confused by the sheer number of options available. On top of that there are thousands of plugins for further enhancing WordPress. Making the correct choices may appear to be a daunting task. Here are 33 tips to help you get started with WordPress.

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Performance Unleashed: How To Optimize Websites and WordPress For Speed

1. Minimize the number of HTTP requests
2. Optimize and correctly display images
3. Minify HTML, CSS, and Javascript
4. Use a Content Delivery Network
5. Gzip and compress components
6. Choose over @import
7. Put stylesheets at the top
8. Put scripts at the bottom
9. Utilize browser caching
10. Use CSS Sprites ]]> http://www.sindark.com/2007/04/09/godaddy-is-too-slow/#comment-101588 Moving from GoDaddy to DreamHost Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:02:13 +0000 http://www.sindark.com/2007/04/09/godaddy-is-too-slow/#comment-101588 [...] they were inexpensive and seemed to have a decent reputation. Since then, I have had a number of problems with them. As a result, I decided not to extend my hosting contract with them, and to shift this site over to [...] [...] they were inexpensive and seemed to have a decent reputation. Since then, I have had a number of problems with them. As a result, I decided not to extend my hosting contract with them, and to shift this site over to [...]

Next, I am purging MySQL entries from uninstalled plugins.

By installing the Bad Behaviour extension for MediaWiki, I seem to have sped up the wiki (and the rest of the site) significantly.

I am also using a combination of WP Super Cache and Akismet on my WordPress blog. I tried using Bad Behaviour, but doing so isn’t compatible with supercaching.

The MySQL databases are the real bottleneck, when it comes to GoDaddy shared hosting.

Problem is that the product is virtually unuseable most of the time. To work on your website it can take 5 or ten minutes for a single box to open. There is nothing wrong with my computer and I have a fast connection. Seeing how many others are complaining about the same slowness, it appears I got badly ripped off. This unreasonable slowness was not clearly disclosed.

Very unhappy with godaddy now and they will end up losing many customers.

Please note that you may only have up to 50 consecutive requests to your hosting account content within a given period or your site will go down temporarily.