In my previous article, I showed you how using nginx and PHP5-fpm could cut down on your memory usage and speed up your site. However, it wasn’t fast enough. We are going to make it even faster. To do this, we are going to use multiple types of caching and a CDN (Amazon S3) to make our data closer to our users, among a few other tweaks. This will also shrink all of our code (HTML, CSS, and Javascript), much like the PageSpeed module Google provides for Apache.
If these tips and tweaks help your site, post your results in the comments! And as always, feel free to ask questions or suggest improvements.
First, we will install APC to cache PHP opcodes. This means less processing if the object is found in the cache, at the expense of a little extra memory usage (default 32MB). Since tiny instances have such limited CPU usage, this is a good trade of.
Note: All commands are run as root. If you are not root, simply type “sudo su” at the command prompt.
apt-get install php-apc
And basically…That’s it! The defaults are very good.
In the last article we covered how to enable the MySQL query cache. If you didn’t follow that tutorial, here’s how to set it:
nano /etc/mysql/my.conf ---- # Ensure these lines are uncommented. query_cache_limit = 1M query_cache_size = 16M
Now login to your WordPress and install the W3-Total-Cache plugin. Then, in the plugins page, hit “Settings” under W3-Total-Cache. We are going to have to add a few rules to nginx.conf to make it work as well as it can. It is originally written for Apache, but the following changes will make it work even better. There are a ton of changes to be made! Everything between Begin Ch
# First we will install PHP Curl extensions so we can use Amazon S3 as our CDN
apt-get -y -q install php5-curl
/etc/init.d/php5-fpm restart
# And then edit our domain configuration
nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com
----
server {
listen 80;
server_name joshgachnang.com;
access_log /ebs/www/joshgachnang/joshgachnang.com/logs/access.log;
error_log /ebs/www/joshgachnang/joshgachnang.com/logs/error.log;
root /ebs/www/joshgachnang/joshgachnang.com/htdocs;
location / {
index index.php index.html index.htm;
################################################
# Begin Changes
################################################
# BEGIN W3TC Page Cache core
rewrite ^(.*\/)?w3tc_rewrite_test$ $1?w3tc_rewrite_test=1 last;
set $w3tc_rewrite 1;
if ($request_method = POST) {
set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
if ($query_string != "") {
set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
set $w3tc_rewrite2 1;
if ($request_uri !~ \/$) {
set $w3tc_rewrite2 0;
}
if ($request_uri ~* "(sitemap\.xml(\.gz)?)") {
set $w3tc_rewrite2 1;
}
if ($w3tc_rewrite2 != 1) {
set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
set $w3tc_rewrite3 1;
if ($request_uri ~* "(\/wp-admin\/|\/xmlrpc.php|\/wp-(app|cron|login|register|mail)\.php|wp-.*\.php|index\.php)") {
set $w3tc_rewrite3 0;
}
if ($request_uri ~* "(wp\-comments\-popup\.php|wp\-links\-opml\.php|wp\-locations\.php)") {
set $w3tc_rewrite3 1;
}
if ($w3tc_rewrite3 != 1) {
set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
if ($http_cookie ~* "(comment_author|wp\-postpass|wordpress_\[a\-f0\-9\]\+|wordpress_logged_in)") {
set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
set $w3tc_ua "";
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(2\.0\ mmp|240x320|alcatel|amoi|asus|au\-mic|audiovox|avantgo|benq|bird|blackberry|blazer|cdm|cellphone|danger|ddipocket|docomo|dopod|elaine/3\.0|ericsson|eudoraweb|fly|haier|hiptop|hp\.ipaq|htc|huawei|i\-mobile|iemobile|j\-phone|kddi|konka|kwc|kyocera/wx310k|lenovo|lg|lg/u990|lge\ vx|midp|midp\-2\.0|mmef20|mmp|mobilephone|mot\-v|motorola|netfront|newgen|newt|nintendo\ ds|nintendo\ wii|nitro|nokia|novarra|o2|openweb|opera\ mobi|opera\.mobi|palm|panasonic|pantech|pdxgw|pg|philips|phone|playstation\ portable|portalmmm|\bppc\b|proxinet|psp|qtek|sagem|samsung|sanyo|sch|sec|sendo|sgh|sharp|sharp\-tq\-gx10|small|smartphone|softbank|sonyericsson|sph|symbian|symbian\ os|symbianos|toshiba|treo|ts21i\-10|up\.browser|up\.link|uts|vertu|vodafone|wap|willcome|windows\ ce|windows\.ce|winwap|xda|zte)") {
set $w3tc_ua _low;
}
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(acer\ s100|android|archos5|blackberry9500|blackberry9530|blackberry9550|blackberry\ 9800|cupcake|docomo\ ht\-03a|dream|htc\ hero|htc\ magic|htc_dream|htc_magic|incognito|ipad|iphone|ipod|kindle|lg\-gw620|liquid\ build|maemo|mot\-mb200|mot\-mb300|nexus\ one|opera\ mini|samsung\-s8000|series60.*webkit|series60/5\.0|sonyericssone10|sonyericssonu20|sonyericssonx10|t\-mobile\ mytouch\ 3g|t\-mobile\ opal|tattoo|webmate|webos)") {
set $w3tc_ua _high;
}
set $w3tc_ref "";
if ($http_cookie ~* "w3tc_referrer=.*(google\.com|yahoo\.com|bing\.com|ask\.com|msn\.com)") {
set $w3tc_ref _search_engines;
}
set $w3tc_ssl "";
if ($scheme = https) {
set $w3tc_ssl _ssl;
}
set $w3tc_enc "";
if ($http_accept_encoding ~ gzip) {
set $w3tc_enc .gzip;
}
if (!-f "$document_root/ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/pgcache/$request_uri/_index$w3tc_ua$w3tc_ref$w3tc_ssl.html$w3tc_enc") {
set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
if ($w3tc_rewrite = 1) {
rewrite .* "/ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/pgcache/$request_uri/_index$w3tc_ua$w3tc_ref$w3tc_ssl.html$w3tc_enc" last;
}
# END W3TC Page Cache core
# BEGIN W3TC Page Cache cache
location ~ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/pgcache.*html$ {
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
add_header Vary "Accept-Encoding, Cookie";
}
location ~ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/pgcache.*gzip$ {
gzip off;
types {}
default_type text/html;
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
add_header Vary "Accept-Encoding, Cookie";
add_header Content-Encoding gzip;
}
# END W3TC Page Cache cache
# BEGIN W3TC Browser Cache
gzip on;
gzip_types text/css application/x-javascript text/richtext image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon;
location ~ \.(css|js)$ {
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
}
location ~ \.(html|htm|rtf|rtx|svg|svgz|txt|xsd|xsl|xml)$ {
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
}
location ~ \.(asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx|avi|bmp|class|divx|doc|docx|exe|gif|gz|gzip|ico|jpg|jpeg|jpe|mdb|mid|midi|mov|qt|mp3|m4a|mp4|m4v|mpeg|mpg|mpe|mpp|odb|odc|odf|odg|odp|ods|odt|ogg|pdf|png|pot|pps|ppt|pptx|ra|ram|swf|tar|tif|tiff|wav|wma|wri|xla|xls|xlsx|xlt|xlw|zip)$ {
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
}
# END W3TC Browser Cache
# BEGIN W3TC Minify core
rewrite ^/ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min/w3tc_rewrite_test$ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min/index.php?w3tc_rewrite_test=1 last;
set $w3tc_enc "";
if ($http_accept_encoding ~ gzip) {
set $w3tc_enc .gzip;
}
if (-f $request_filename$w3tc_enc) {
rewrite (.*) $1$w3tc_enc break;
}
rewrite ^/ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min/(.+\.(css|js))$ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min/index.php?file=$1 last;
# END W3TC Minify core
# BEGIN W3TC Minify cache
location ~ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min.*\.js$ {
types {}
default_type application/x-javascript;
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
add_header Vary "Accept-Encoding";
}
location ~ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min.*\.css$ {
types {}
default_type text/css;
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
add_header Vary "Accept-Encoding";
}
location ~ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min.*js\.gzip$ {
gzip off;
types {}
default_type application/x-javascript;
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
add_header Vary "Accept-Encoding";
add_header Content-Encoding gzip;
}
location ~ /ebs/www/joshgachnang/servercobra.com/htdocs/wp-content/w3tc/min.*css\.gzip$ {
gzip off;
types {}
default_type text/css;
add_header X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.2";
add_header Vary "Accept-Encoding";
add_header Content-Encoding gzip;
}
# END W3TC Minify cache
################################################
# End changes
################################################
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9001;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /ebs/www/joshgachnang/joshgachnang.com/htdocs$fastcgi_script_name; # same path as above
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_script_name;
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
}
# Static files
if (-f $request_filename) {
expires 30d;
break;
}
if (!-e $request_filename) {
rewrite ^(.+)$ /index.php?q=$1 last;
}
}
}
Now login to your WordPress admin panel. Go install the W3 Total Cache plugin. Then Click the new Performance Panel on the left. Here is the list of caches I enabled and the page cache method:
- Page Cache – Opcode: APC
- Minify – Opcode: APC
- Database Cache – Opcode: APC
- Content Delivery Network – Amazon Simple Storage Service
- Browser Cache
Then hit deploy at the top, and test it to make sure its working. After that, click “Content Delivery Network” near the top. Fill in the Access key ID and Secret key. Save your settings, then fill in the Bucket: with your domain name (example.com), and hit Create Bucket. Hit Test S3 upload just in case.
Now scroll all the way to the top. We need to upload our whole media library. For some reason, when I hit “export the media library”, it didn’t want to upload. Instead hit each of “wp-includes”, “theme files”, and “custom files”, and hit “Start” on each. This should upload all your files up to S3. Reload your site, and see how fast it is! Dig through all the settings, understand them, and tweak them, with a lot of testing.
A great way to test the speed on your server is the “ab” or Apache Benchmark. Here’s a quick tutorial.
# To install Apache Benchmark: apt-get -y -q install apache2-utils # To run ab, I find this is a good test. Add a few magnitudes of 10 to the number of runs to really add some extended stress # This will run 10 requests concurrently, each hitting the site 100 times. Bump up 100 to 1,000 or 10,000 for extended tests. ab -kc 10 -n 100 http://example.com/
About Josh Gachnang
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