Ways to optimize vBulletin post your solutions

[dbembibre]

If interesting make a list with diferents solutions to optimize the servers.
Mine

Server:
Dual Xeon 2.8 (Dual), 2Gb Ram and SCSI Ultra 320 without Raid
Fedora Core 2.
eAccelerator, MySQL 4.1 and PHP 4.2

Stats:
Number of Posts 1.232.221
Number of members 16.927
Online 500-800

vBulletin:
-Natural search instead off vBulletin search.
Boolean search OFF

-A plugin to disable search when load is high
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=102882

-vBulletin cache ON with eAccelerator and cached keys of static data

-Index for ip field in post table.

Please post your solutions about caching and optimize vBulletin

Excuse my broken English.

[Xorlev]

-APC cache. I recommend APC cache over eAccelerator if you're not on a shared environment, or need the decoding abilities of Zend Optimizer. If you do, then run eAccelerator (keep an eye out for bugs) + Zend Optimizer.

-Run PHP 5.1.2+. PHP 5 is horribly slow, and I prefer it over PHP 4. By default, PHP 5 also passes objects as references rather than copies which can save on RAM.

-PHP via FastCGI or similar. I run my PHP with Litespeed webserver...it has a custom SAPI module that's faster than FastCGI, but even so FastCGI is far faster than CGI or mod_php.

-Dump Apache. Apache is a great server, but it tries to be everything to everyone and is rather clunky. Use Lighttpd (can use FastCGI), or give Litespeed webserver a try.

-Setup MySQL with a query cache. It takes more RAM, but it saves the need for executing the same SELECT queries over and over when the dataset is still the same.

-Disable per-thread and per-forum "who's online". It's a neat feature, and I use it, but if you're squeezing for performance this can help.

-Plugin Based Template Cache (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=113002). When used in "multiple files" mode, this works to great effect with APC.

I have some more I'll post later.

[Zachery]

Go to vBulletin.com and visit the server optmization forum.

APC cache is nice, so go with it.

PHP 5 with APC is a great optimization and I'd have to recomend it, altho PHP4 is just as fast overall.

Do not run php as CGI/FastCGI esp if you continue running apache.

Not everyone has the ability to dump apache, possibly cpanel in the way, however you can still make use of lighttpd by compiing it binding it to a free ip and moving your static images over to it on a subdomain like images.domain.com.

The plugin based template cache is not actually that much more of a preformance boost in a large real world enviroment.

[Xorlev]

Lightspeed webserver works with CPanel by importing current apache config and replaces it fine.

[Zachery]

What about adding new accounts, cpanel tryign to restart apache? etc?

[dbembibre]

Thanks for your responses, the server is mine but the problem is that i pay for plesk panel and plesk need apache.

WRT APC, i test APC a months ago and the load o f my server up and up. eAccelerator ever work well for me. I try use Lightspeed in another server for images only and update to PHP 5.1.

I remove the Raid1 of my server and move MySQL to the secondary disk, now the response is incredible :)

Thanks for your tips.

[Xorlev]

What about adding new accounts, cpanel tryign to restart apache? etc?

Litespeed automatically reloads the apache config when it changes. As for the rebooting, I just replaced /etc/init.d/httpd with a custom wrapper for lswsctrl. Also, Litespeed when importing Apache config writes out the byte log like Apache would, so bandwidth is still shown. Suspending a site is just a rewrite rule, so that's no problem either. Also, in the latest release of Litespeed you can manually specify a byte log in vhosts you create so you can track bandwidth (either through CPanel or otherwise).


More tips:

-Set CSS to save to file.

-Set attachment and profile/avatar pictures to save to filesystem.

[dbembibre]

More tips:

-Set CSS to save to file.

-Set attachment and profile/avatar pictures to save to filesystem.

Yes, i make this 2 years ago, thanks again sir

[ThorstenA]

You can also do not show who's online for guests. If you have lots of guests, it will give your forum more speed ;)

[Erwin]

I totally disable it. :)

[PennylessZ28]

Hey I wanna get in on some of this knowledge.

Server:
Operating system Linux 2.6.8-022stab070.9-enterprise
CPU AuthenticAMD, Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 265

Running PHP 4.3.9 & Apache v2.0.52

I am curious about learning more on PHP 5 with ACP and why it would benfit my forum?

I was about to install eaccelerator but I'm pausing to learn more first.

What might I experince if I simply upgraded right this second to php5 with out knowing what I'm getting into? IE what problems might I encounter with compadiblity with vbulletin.

Are there changes that need to be made?

I should mention that I noticed in an above post, the statement about PLESk, I used to use CPANEL but for some reaosn I thought plesk would be great this time around. 2 weeks in and I'm wondering if it was wise.

[Paul M]

Personally, I would avoid php 5 atm - upgrade to 4.4.2 and install APC, not eaccelerator.

We use plesk (7.5.4) and it doesn't seem to be any worse than cpanel.

[Xorlev]

4.3.9 has security flaws...at least upgrade to 4.4.2.

Also, there is no problems between PHP 4/5 on vBulletin. The PHP devs did extremely well when they released PHP 5 as to not break functionality. 99% of scripts work out of the box from PHP 4 to PHP 5.

Paul M: Why wouldn't you recommend PHP 5.1? PHP 5 sucks, but PHP 5.1 works wonderfully. I've used it on production sites for quite a while with no problems.

Ew, Plesk.