Board Optimization - vB Accelerator

ported & significantly improved vb 3.8 branch.

This mod is suited for medium and big boards. It reduces server load, caused by thumnails and big attachments. Includes significant recommendations for server tuning, to speedup pages loading.

what's the problem with?

1. In original vB all thumbnails a downloaded via php. So, if you page contains 10-20 attached images, then each page php request will be followed by 10-20 thumbnails php requests. That's very bad.
2. When attachments body transfered via php, that's much more waisteful, than direct transfer of static file. Especially for big files.
3. Browser does lots of additional requests to static file, to check if modified
4. JS/CSS not compressed

what this mod does:

1. All thumbnails will have DIRECT links (served as static files). Much lower reply latency and server load.
2. If you have nginx webserver, you php-fcgi will not participate in file transfer any more. It will reply with X-Accel-Redirect header. Then nginx will proceed attachment as static file.
   • No more problems with multiple downloads of 10-mb files.
   • No needs to restrict attachments and full-size images for guests and search bots.
3. Static files are properly cached/compressed after tuning

how to install:

1. Make sure, attachments are stored on disk, NOT in database.
2. Make sure, that thumbnails are in web-accessible area. If not - reconfigure your web-server first.
3. Check manually, that you can download any .thumb file via browser.
4. !!! Tune cache/compression settings for static files (see example from next post)
5. Import product XML & tune settings.
6. Enjoy

This mod is developped here: http://github.com/rcdesign/vb-accelerator . Patches are welcome.

history:

0.9
- fixed path for duplicated attachments

0.8
- fixed back timestamp parameter & substitutions for XML output
- added conversion for assets.php thumbnails (in attachments manager)

0.7
- ported to vb4
- added basic CDN support for thumbnails

[MarkFL]

Originally Posted by webmaster74

you are indeed right, but in principle, a recent mod is less of a risk than an old and non-updated one.

Whenever I have interest in using a new (that I've not used before) product, I always install on a test installation first, and put it through its paces there, and work out all issues if they exist before I consider installing on a live site.