Performance changes

[Mopar1973Man]

I've working long hours digging into the server and trying to make it the fastest I can to meet all the Google requirements. There has been several changes to the core of the server that has improved speed considerable. Add and configured disk cache software for the Apache server.Comparing memory cache vs. disk cache is way different. Basically in a nutshell the server creates templates of pages and instead of running the PHP code and render the HTML page it just pull the template out and re-uses the info again. Saves processor time.

 

Then now I'm attempting to change the PHP handler from CGI (Old school PHP handler) to the FastCGI (Up to date PHP handler). This will require a bit more RAM to run but the process is faster. Bad part its not just a go to a webpage and click a switch to turn on. I've got to write all the .conf files myself and configure all the setting to match the current server when the article came out was for PHP 7.0 and current is PHP 7.4 with even more changes. Even cPanel admits in their own article that its setup for the old CGI handler by default and no easy way to switch over. 

 

I still continue to monitor and test the website server randomly through the day looking to see how traffic and server load is impacting times. The new testing of web pages is more about how fast you can render a page. 

 

• First Contentful Paint - Needs to be less than 1.0 seconds!
• Speed Index - Needs to be less than 1.3 seconds!

• Largest Contentful Paint - Needs to be less than 1.2 seconds! 

• Time to Interactive - Needs to be less than 2.5 seconds! 

• Total Blocking Time - Needs to be less than 150 milliseconds!

• Cumulative Layout Shift - Needs to be less than 0.1 score!

 

Basically in a nutshell I need to be even faster yet. I'm trying to squeeze out just a weebit more horsepower and cut the drag of the heavy graphics of the old web theme. Hence the incomplete look.

 

[Mopar1973Man]

Just a random check of the server and how it scoring currently 176 active users.

 

 

Apache...

Current Time: Sunday, 03-Jan-2021 09:13:42 MST
Restart Time: Friday, 01-Jan-2021 13:42:33 MST
Parent Server Config. Generation: 3
Parent Server MPM Generation: 2
Server uptime: 1 day 19 hours 31 minutes 8 seconds
Server load: 0.19 0.20 0.22
Total accesses: 317647 - Total Traffic: 9.5 GB - Total Duration: 53908818
CPU Usage: u156.02 s46.33 cu1269.19 cs353.63 - 1.16% CPU load
2.03 requests/sec - 63.4 kB/second - 31.3 kB/request - 169.713 ms/request
1 requests currently being processed, 124 idle workers

 

Apache Benchmark with 1,000 users in batches of 100 at a time.

Server Software:        Apache
Server Hostname:        mopar1973man.com
Server Port:            443
SSL/TLS Protocol:       TLSv1.2,ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384,2048,256
Server Temp Key:        X25519 253 bits
TLS Server Name:        mopar1973man.com

Document Path:          /index.php
Document Length:        151590 bytes

Concurrency Level:      100
Time taken for tests:   8.403 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Total transferred:      152228545 bytes
HTML transferred:       151590000 bytes
Requests per second:    119.01 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       840.260 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       8.403 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          17692.23 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        2  117  82.1    103     406
Processing:    61  710 270.0    674    1750
Waiting:       49  429 307.9    331    1570
Total:        112  827 262.0    817    1757

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    817
  66%    920
  75%    968
  80%   1002
  90%   1175
  95%   1305
  98%   1452
  99%   1530
 100%   1757 (longest request)

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Mopar1973Man

[Doubletrouble]

 I don't claim to know much about this stuff but I would like to ask a question.

 I use my phone primarily for this site. I occasionally sign on from my laptop or tablet. I normally stay signed in from my phone at all times for the most part.

 Question is, if you were to set things up to where it would sign off idle users like myself after they were idle for X amount of time would that take a load off of the server and possibly help speed up load times for you?

 Hope that made sense, I've said it before, I'm not a tech guy.

[Mopar1973Man]

Software i think times out in about 15 minutes. Then server let's go of the connection after 5 seconds (keep alive setting).

[Doubletrouble]

 Ok, so it's like I'm not even on using resources after it times out then? 

 Just trying to help.

[Mopar1973Man]

There is several factors. Like the server holds your channel open but not giving resource after the page is rendered. The keep alive holds the channel open while the next request is asked for. Once the 5 seconds is done the channel closes. Resources are freed. 

[Mopar1973Man]

15 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Software i think times out in about 15 minutes. Then server let's go of the connection after 5 seconds (keep alive setting).

 

Correction the software holds your place, logged in and every through the cookie for up to 30 minutes. Server drops the resource lots quicker. You got to remember there is always someone on the website either human or search engine. Never a time where the site is true quiet unless I nuke the software so nothing displays. Kind of like having a race truck that never stops in the pit but your ride along and attempt to tune the engine while driving a race. This the position I'm in I don't get the time to tear down or replace big chucks of the site. It all gotta be done while the race is running. 

 

 

[Mopar1973Man]

Continuing...

 

So I mention optimizing the photo pile on the server. I've been bench testing the gains and performance of this. So I took the Dec 2020 folder of attachments and then downloaded it. I've already got JPEGOptim app on my Ubuntu. Now I went and copied the folder so I had before and after. 

 

Side by compare...

 

173.3 MB for original copy compared to 159.8 MB after optimizing.

 

That is a 13.5 MB saving for just all the attachments for December 2020. Being the photos are smaller that mean less processing power and less bandwidth to get information to the members.  

 

Which would solve this problem for speed scores.

 

Now I got to setup the server with the same software and systematically go through and do every folder holding photos and optimize the entire website. There is only 61 GB of information to dig through. 

 

A little sample testing on the server directly. 

ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 184567 --> 153356 bytes (16.91%), optimized.
PXL_20201216_195246315.jpg.bd6fe9e69bd330fe92c5d06bfeeb8e1e.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 171027 --> 139908 bytes (18.20%), optimized.
PXL_20201216_195903209.jpg.7593d6f275555c0e7ea84aa8362bf0ba.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 227430 --> 197127 bytes (13.32%), optimized.
PXL_20201216_201929633.jpg.8ce9c63190aa50cb70a4f7f9f867aab0.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 209671 --> 179092 bytes (14.58%), optimized.
PXL_20201216_205837720.jpg.5b67de70897d7c7eaf67674c7c495215.jpg 1200x1600 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 210208 --> 179433 bytes (14.64%), optimized.
PXL_20201217_013613375.jpg.7fc6a1b0693a7b9a314e1471a42664e9.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 289598 --> 259299 bytes (10.46%), optimized.
PXL_20201217_220609360.jpg.e2d1255121146ee630db88ef92c9b61d.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 226432 --> 196365 bytes (13.28%), optimized.
PXL_20201218_191035332.jpg.858391502e81fb0abe6290f96766c548.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 209280 --> 178805 bytes (14.56%), optimized.
PXL_20201219_014446542.jpg.91ca7e289ca6784108586efac70311b5.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 293550 --> 262515 bytes (10.57%), optimized.
PXL_20201219_045723264.jpg.6c643ed6a690e81de83e0534d4bc5e25.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 225021 --> 195110 bytes (13.29%), optimized.
PXL_20201220_035400804.jpg.29bd561760f11e621e95d047030e549a.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 194216 --> 163881 bytes (15.62%), optimized.
PXL_20201220_211941173.jpg.a844f7f1ce71df8b128935062e1bf364.jpg 1600x1200 24bit N Exif ICC XMP JFIF  [OK] 216919 --> 185484 bytes (14.49%), optimized.

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Mopar1973Man

[Doubletrouble]

 It's great that yor so open and transparent with what your doing to the site mike. I don't understand most of it but I do appreciate what you do and the fact that you share with us. There is alot of work that goes into this site, I know this by what you share with us. Thank you for you time and effort.

[Mopar1973Man]

@Doubletrouble in a nutshell... 

 

Just like our trucks, the light the truck and less drag the better the performance. I've got over 18 years of photos on this server from over 8,000 members if I can save at least 20% of the space on the server hard drive and making the photos lighter this mean faster response from the server to you no matter where you are. Like currently I'm getting most pages loaded and done with in 1 to 2 seconds (just about 1.2 to 1.8 MB per page). Still not enough I need to break under the 1 second load time to really be meeting Google's requirements. Back to looking at the 1/4 mile racing it all about that 0.1 second you can shave off the 1/4 mile. It the very same thing I'm doing here. The current server is a 8 core Intel. I've got plenty of HP under the hood but still got too much drag to get to the finish line fast enough. 

 

Like I'm doing the research on converting from CGI to FastCGI this will render the PHP script of the software fast with less memory and processor load. Currently working between the software company and the cPanel company to gain that simple 0.1 of second our more if possible. Kind of like what I do with the Quadzilla and tuning...

 

But I still love to compare to my biggest competitor... CumminsForum... Still ahead and winning the battle.

 

Here is how Google sees the site... I need the green line on top not the yellow or red...

 

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Mopar1973Man

[Doubletrouble]

 I think your doing a great job, you have my respect for doing all of this and your efforts do not go unnoticed. I appreciate it as I'm sure many others do.

[Mopar1973Man]

That's the thing most think that you can just throw a website up and you don't have to do anything. Far from the truth. As new technology comes out and the software changes come you have to keep upgrading and fixing minor issues. My problem is after doing all the dialysis running for MoparMom the site fell apart some what and now I'm playing catch up now that I'm not on the road 1,1100 miles a week. I get up early every day somewhere around 4am to 5am and plug at the website for at least 3 to 4 hours every morning. Bench testing and diagnosing issues in the software fixing things as I can. Hence why this is slow process getting it and singing like it should.

[Mopar1973Man]

If anyone is interested in following my tech stuff here is my forum post over at cPanel. 

 

https://forums.cpanel.net/threads/fastcgi-setup-for-php-7-4.684429/

 

Here is the software I'm attempting to update. Switch from CGI to FastCGI which will help with getting data from the database and render the page faster. The CGI part is what binds the PHP script to the server as well as the MySQL database. Again about shaving off time to process the pages. Gotta cut the drag off the server. 

 

CGI - Common Gateway Interface a software that bind the PHP engine to the Server

PHP - PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor ) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. This what the website software is make from.

MySQL - is my database that holds all the website data (forum posts, etc.)

Apache - Is my server that renders the HTML pages for your browser.

 

LAMP - Acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP

 

PERSONAL TIDBIT: If you didn't know I do have a Degree in Computer and Electronic Science from ITT Tech. Strange enough I've never gone to school for diesel anything and I am NOT ASE certified. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Mopar1973Man

[Mopar1973Man]

Sorry gang for the early morning down time I thought I had the answer to the Fast CGI setup but alas I was wrong and the server went down for a short bit. I'm still not giving up and been reading all over the web for Apache Server, PHP for PHP-FPM settings. Then flip back over to cPanel and read more about both. Still I can verify if the Fast CGI is loading properly or communication properly. Servers can and will drop a service that it having problem and disable it silently. 

[leety]

47 minutes ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Sorry gang for the early morning down time I thought I had the answer to the Fast CGI setup but alas I was wrong and the server went down for a short bit. I'm still not giving up and been reading all over the web for Apache Server, PHP for PHP-FPM settings. Then flip back over to cPanel and read more about both. Still I can verify if the Fast CGI is loading properly or communication properly. Servers can and will drop a service that it having problem and disable it silently. 

No problem, sometimes it takes longer than we think it will to work out the kinks.

 

Thanks for all your hard work on this.

[Threadzy]

Thanks Mike for all your hard work here. 

[Mopar1973Man]

Now I've got two companies now looking into the FastCGI issues. I've got a support ticket with our hosting company and then all my post over on cPanel forum. See where this goes from here.