Servers give you warnings before they fail. Most sysadmins performing Linux server monitoring miss them because they’re watching the wrong numbers. The metrics that actually matter are one level deeper: iowait instead of CPU percentage, active swap paging instead of memory usage, inode counts instead of just disk space. If you’re not tracking them, you’re […]
Articles tagged: performance
Nginx tuning tips: HTTPS/TLS – Turbocharge TTFB/Latency
Nginx TLS tuning won’t fix a slow application, but it does cut handshake overhead and improve connection reuse, which shaves milliseconds off every HTTPS request. This guide covers the TLS, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 settings I use to keep Nginx fast without giving up modern security. The goal is lower TTFB (Time To First Byte) and […]
Linux tmpfs for Speed and Temporary Storage
tmpfs lets you mount a filesystem entirely in RAM. Here is how Linux already uses it, how to create your own mounts, and where it actually makes sense to use one.
PHP-FPM tuning: Using ‘pm static’ for max performance
Let’s take a quick look at how best to set up PHP-FPM for high throughput, low latency, and more stable CPU and memory use. By default, most setups have PHP-FPM’s PM (process manager) string set to dynamic and there’s also the common advice to use ondemand if you suffer from available memory issues. However, let’s […]
Watching Cloudflare Data Center Locations in real-time
Over the last couple of months I’ve had performance issues with Cloudflare (CF) about 2 times, including today. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, because Cloudflare genuinely doesn’t have performance issues most of the time, and when they do, it’s usually on the status page as part of a larger issue. This one […]
Why VRAM Can Ruin Your Linux Desktop Experience on Thin and Light Laptops
If the Linux desktop and applications on your thin and light laptop or low-end PC feel sluggish under a busy session, the usual suspects are slow storage R/W, not enough RAM, or occasionally a CPU bottleneck. But on machines with integrated graphics, there is a fourth bottleneck most people never check: VRAM. And when it runs […]
Why Linux Servers Slow Down: R, S, D, Z and T Process States Explained
Monitoring dashboards occasionally indicate low CPU utilization (e.g., 22%) and ample free memory, yet applications may exhibit sluggishness and increased response times. This common discrepancy in Linux environments often stems from process states that are not captured by high-level resource summaries. Every process on a Linux server is assigned a state. The single-letter identifier in […]
Cloudflare with Discourse: Setup Guide (WAF & Security Rules)
I run a Discourse forum behind Cloudflare, and getting the WAF rules right took more trial and error than I expected. Discourse is a Ruby on Rails application that most people self-host in a Docker container. It handles traffic differently from a typical CMS, and generic Cloudflare WAF rules will either break your forum or […]
systemd-analyze: Debug and Optimize Your Linux Boot Time
If your Linux system takes longer to boot than you think it should, the answer is almost certainly hiding in your systemd startup chain. The good news: systemd already ships with everything you need to find the problem and fix it. No extra tools required, no guesswork. In this guide, you will use systemd-analyze to […]
30 Linux Sysadmin Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed
As a Linux server admin or Linux desktop user, you rely on familiar tools to manage your systems. But have you ever wondered what other tools might simplify your workflow, improve efficiency, and solve common Linux problems? Whether you’re looking into Linux system health, performance monitoring, security hardening, backups, or just general Linux administration, there […]
