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

[Vitaly]

Nginx config sample

# Modified gzip settings: added CSS/JS,
# but completely disabled for broken browsers.
gzip_types       text/plain text/css application/x-javascript text/xml text/javascript;
gzip_disable     "MSIE [1-6].(?!.*SV1)";


# globally disable external access to attachments, but enable for X-Accel-Redirect
location /uploads {
    internal;
}
# enable thumbnails direct access, but nothing else!
location ~* /uploads/(.*)\.thumb$ {
    expires 24h;
}


# Expires for static files.
location /images/ {
    expires 24h;
}
location /clientscript/ {
    expires 24h;
}
location /custom { # All at once: profile pics, avatars, group images
    expires 24h;
}

Apache config example

TBD . Please, help to fill.

[funmasti]

Thanks... anyone tried it?

[gwerzal]

This looks good. thanks for sharing.

[Vitaly]

Updated mod to catch XML output & timestamp issues.

[TeknoSounds]

Will this work along side vbOptimize and vB4: Supercharged? Are there conflicts? Duplicated features?

[ChopSuey]

Originally Posted by TeknoSounds

Will this work along side vbOptimize and vB4: Supercharged? Are there conflicts? Duplicated features?

vBOptimize is more of caching, vB4 supercharges is like "Store CSS As files" option but a little better. I don't see any conflicts.

[Darkimmortal]

Oh cool, this looks like an improved version of my 'Attachment Optimiser' in vB4 SuperCharged - installed

[Dr.osamA]

Thanks
installed

but i am not sour if it is working

anyone tried it?

waiting for tests

[Vitaly]

Originally Posted by Darkimmortal

Oh cool, this looks like an improved version of my 'Attachment Optimiser' in vB4 SuperCharged - installed

In fact, on the second page load, other feature doesn't make sence, if you set long expire for static content . You can check with firebug NET bookmark.

Optimizing the first page load is potentially interesting, but price in your case is very high - big server load and lots of possible conflicts.