PHP 8.4 shipped in November 2024 and is now the default on Ubuntu 24.04 repositories and most 2026 managed images. The question for anyone running a small VPS is concrete:…
Read MoreProfiling PHP-FPM Bottlenecks on a VPS: slowlog, strace, and Real Request Tracing
When a page takes 1.8 seconds and CPU sits at 40 percent, the problem is not capacity — it is latency somewhere in the request path. Guessing at it means…
Read MoreTransparent Hugepages and Kernel Samepage Merging on a VPS: Latency Effects Measured
Two kernel memory features are enabled by default on most Linux distributions and quietly change latency characteristics in opposite directions. Transparent Hugepages (THP) reduces TLB misses by backing memory with…
Read MoreMySQL Memory Budget on a 1 GB VPS: Measuring Every Buffer Instead of Guessing
A measured breakdown of MySQL memory on a 1 GB VPS: how to read the buffer pool allocation, compute the per-connection worst case, and budget RAM without triggering swap.
Read MoreLoad Average vs CPU Saturation on a VPS: Reading Both Without Getting Fooled
Why a load average of 8 can be harmless on an 8-core VPS and a load of 1.5 can be catastrophic on a 2-core one — and the metrics that tell you which situation you are in.
Read MoreCutting MySQL Memory on a Small VPS: A Verified, Repeatable Procedure
A verified procedure for reducing MySQL memory on a 1-2 GB VPS: baseline the RSS, right-size the buffer pool, trim per-connection buffers, and confirm the reclaimed memory.
Read MoreNginx vs Apache on a Low-Traffic VPS: Measured Memory, Config and Maintenance Costs
An object cache (Redis or APCu) so repeated queries are served from memory. OPcache with a generous opcache.memory_consumption, so PHP is not recompiled per request. Only then, the choice of…
Read MoreDiagnosing Disk I/O Latency Spikes on a VPS Before They Wreck TTFB
A step-by-step method for isolating disk I/O latency spikes on a VPS: measure the right metrics, separate write and read pressure, and fix the actual bottleneck.
Read MoreSizing the InnoDB Buffer Pool for a 1 GB VPS: The Arithmetic Nobody Shows You
The default MySQL configuration on most VPS images allocates `128M` to the InnoDB buffer pool. On a 1 GB instance running WordPress, that leaves roughly 700 MB of RAM idle…
Read MoreNginx Upstream Keepalive on a VPS: Sizing Connection Pools With Measured Evidence
Without keepalive, every proxied request makes Nginx open a fresh TCP connection to your app server, run the handshake, serve, and tear it down. Under load this shows up as…
Read More