A while back, I wrote the article Tuning MySQL my.cnf? Avoid this common pitfall! With the release of MySQL 8 I wanted to paste some of a my.cnf config file for discussion, suggestions and questions. With the launch of the blog’s tech forums, I’m hoping that the performance tuning tips that emerge will be from […]
25 Best CDN Providers 2022
A content delivery network, also referred to as a content distribution network (CDN), is a geographically distributed network of data centers containing proxy servers. CDN providers serve internet content, including web objects (text, graphics, and scripts), downloadable objects (media files, software, documents), applications (e-commerce, portals), live-streaming media, to name closer to and thus faster, to end-users. Some of the […]
Could not increase number of max_open_files to more than… (Solution)
A quick solution to the warning “Could not increase number of max_open_files to more than” when starting MySQL or MariaDB. For some background, read How MySQL Opens and Closes Tables. Here’s an excerpt: “The table_open_cache and max_connections system variables affect the maximum number of files the server keeps open. If you increase one or both of […]
What is iowait and how does it affect Linux performance?
I/O wait or iowait, wait, wa, %iowait, or wait% is often displayed by command-line Linux system monitoring tools such as top, sar, atop, and others. On its own, it’s one of many performance stats that provide us insight into Linux system performance. I/O wait came up in a recent discussion with a new client. During our […]
Free vs. Available Memory in Linux
At times we will need to know precisely how our Linux systems use memory. This article will examine how to use the free command-line utility to view memory usage on a Linux system. In doing so, we will clearly define the difference between free vs. available memory on Linux systems. Free vs. Available memory […]
Finding Linux Compatible Printers
Here’s all the info and links needed to find printers or all-in-one printers that currently support Linux. If you don’t want to spend hours comparing printers, have a look at my recommended Linux compatible printers. This is the promised update as per the comments section below, sorry about the delay! Fixed broken manufacture product links and replaced […]
Stop trying to overclock the Raspberry Pi 3 B+
It’s been a while since I’ve written any Raspberry Pi-related posts. Primarily because I’ve been using used $200 to $300 Dell Optiplex Micro computers off eBay, they cost more than the same or less than a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ but can be custom configured with up to 8GB (3050 model), 16GB or 20GB of fast […]
PHP Performance: Additional CPU cores vs Faster CPU cores
Some time ago, I received an email from a client experiencing slow performance issues with a LEMP (Linux, Nginx, MySQL, and PHP webserver). During a full audit, I found that the server’s load average was pretty low (see above screenshot). However, the website was indeed very slow. There were some misconfigurations, but one of the […]
Improving OpenVPN performance and throughput
OpenVPN, Wireguard, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP, IKEv2, PPTP, or others. If you had the luxury of choosing, which VPN protocols would you use? Therein lies my problem. In my current use case, I must find a way to improve OpenVPN performance and throughput. You may have been following my Linux home lab build. One of the most […]
PHP 8 Compatibility Check and Performance Tips.
PHP 7 was first released back on 03 Dec 2015. Yes, it’s been around a while! The PHP team encouraged upgrading to PHP 7, hailing its improvements such as being twice as fast, consistent 64-bit support, removing old and unsupported SAPIs and extensions, and improved fatal error resistance, to name a few. A few years […]