Dedicated Server Setup and Control Panel

[AlexWebsites]

I’m reviewing my dedicated server with the fact that I need to move away from centos 7 with CPanel/WHM anyway, to update. I’m wondering what everyone is running, especially with Google core web vitals now impacting search ranking and the need for speed. I’ve seen my sites drop off to competing optimized xenforo sites with better scores. I’m thinking of moving to Maria DB and maybe to Plesk. I run 7 sites on this server. My hardware/setup on this server is:

• Dual Intel Xeon L5520
• DDR3 96GB
• RAID setup - 2X 500 GB SSD
• Operating System: CentOS 7
• cPanel’s/WHM 
• MYSQL 8
• PHP 8.1
• Redis, opcache
• Cloudflare Basic

If you are running a dedicated box, what type of hardware, OS, control panel, and config are you running? How’s it working and how are your code web vitals for your forums? What are you doing to speed up TTFB, LCP, and FCP. Caching, CDN?

[Aiwa]

I don’t run near as much as you, nor popular enough. I mostly run private applications. Some that do require some power, but they aren’t IPS applications or a competing product. ( CYA there ). 

As for OS, I prefer Ubuntu. Easier to work with, and has a wider variety of tools available. I’d like to think it would give you the freedom to employ any tool available to squeak all the performance you can.

[Donnie95]

On 1/28/2024 at 10:59 PM, AlexWebsites said:

Dual Intel Xeon L5520

This CPU seems weak.

As for the control panel, I use one called CloudPanel.

https://www.cloudpanel.io/

It's completely free.

[Aiwa]

I use webmin, set up with proxies, firewalled, and secured using ssh login. All said and done you can only access it from local host on a random port you assign. 🙂 security of your control panel is paramount. Especially when you use a free one. 

[AlexWebsites]

4 hours ago, Donnie95 said:

This CPU seems weak.

As for the control panel, I use one called CloudPanel.

https://www.cloudpanel.io/

It's completely free.

What type of hardware are you running?

[Donnie95]

On 2/1/2024 at 10:02 PM, AlexWebsites said:

What type of hardware are you running?

Cloud server.

• 4 Core (Xeon Gold CPU)
• 8 GB RAM
• 80GB NVME SSD
• 300GB Block storage for my upload folder.
• $45 per month.

I have around 9000 unique visitors per day, with approximately 250 accounts connected at all times.

 

[AlexWebsites]

2 hours ago, Donnie95 said:

Cloud server.

• 4 Core (Xeon Gold CPU)
• 8 GB RAM
• 80GB NVME SSD
• 300GB Block storage for my upload folder.
• $45 per month.

I have around 9000 unique visitors per day, with approximately 250 accounts connected at all times.

 

Thanks. I’m assuming that’s DDR4? I’ve focused too much on having high ram when I think I can do better with a higher performing CPU and lower ram. Can you PM me the cloud provider? I’d like to take a look.

[Donnie95]

1 hour ago, AlexWebsites said:

Thanks. I’m assuming that’s DDR4? I’ve focused too much on having high ram when I think I can do better with a higher performing CPU and lower ram. Can you PM me the cloud provider? I’d like to take a look.

Yes DDR4. Your specs are unbalanced. You should check your RAM usage and definitely get a better CPU.

Who is your hosting provider, and what is the cost of this server?

[AlexWebsites]

7 minutes ago, Donnie95 said:

Yes DDR4. Your specs are unbalanced. You should check your RAM usage and definitely get a better CPU.

Who is your hosting provider, and what is the cost of this server?

It’s a US host in NY (I’ll PM you), cost is $70 a month.

[Safety1st]

What about typical load (CPU, RAM) on your communities?

[AlexWebsites]

23 hours ago, Safety1st said:

What about typical load (CPU, RAM) on your communities?

mysql takes up the most. I also run as php-fpm for each account/site. 8 sites on the server