server on AnyStack

Optimize easily your WordPress images without any plugin

Sun, 23 Oct 2016 05:52:28 +0000

You want to improve your pagespeed score by optimizing your images in WordPress ? But you don’t want to pay a subscription for a plugin ? If you are using a VPS or a dedicated server, you don’t need any plugin to optimize all your images easily.

For that you can use this script :

# For debian/Ubuntu
wget -qO optimize.sh https://git.virtubox.net/virtubox/wp-optimize/raw/master/deb-wp-optimize.sh && bash optimize.sh

#For Centos/RedHat
cd /var/www
wget -qO optimize.sh https://git.virtubox.net/virtubox/wp-optimize/raw/master/centos-wp-optimize.sh && bash optimize.sh

If you want to do the process manually

# Debian/Ubuntu
apt-get update && apt-get install optipng jpegoptim -y

# Centos
yum update && yum install optipng jpegoptim -y

Then you just have to go in your web directory and to run the following commands :

cd /var/www
find . -name *.jp* | xargs jpegoptim --strip-all -m76
find . -iname '*.png' -print0 | xargs -0 optipng -o7 -preserve

Making WordPress faster by running wp-cron with Linux

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:54:00 +0000

WordPress use wp-cron to check updates for themes, plugins and some other process but it could have an impact on your website speed because WordPress execute it on every page-loading. So if you have a lot of traffic, it will (no benchmark proof at the moment) delay page loading for users.

So if you are using a linux server (VPS or dedicated), you can easily create a cron job to run it each 5 minutes or each 10 minutes. But remember WordPress need wp-cron to work properly, so don’t disable it totally !

To disable wp-cron, just add the following line in wp-config.php :

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Then to add a cronjob you have to a :

## Run the crontab with your server or vhost user 
crontab -u yourserveruser -e

## method 1 : using curl to run the script
*/10 * * * * curl http://example.com/wp-cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

## method 2 : using php to run it
*/10 * * * * cd /var/www/example.com/htdocs; php /var/www/example.com/htdocs/wp-cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

The first method use PHP-CGI when the second use PHP-CLI, the only difference is CLI does not have time limit to run a script. Because this way, the wp-cron will not impact page loading speed, it’s highly recommended to use linux cron instead of default WordPress cron.

You can change */10 with */5 to run the cron each 5 minutes instead of each 10 minutes.

HTTP2 & Web Optimization - How to have a fast website in 2016

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:48:00 +0000

Few years ago, the HTTPs protocol was slower than the http, due the the initial handshake of any SSL transaction. But with the HTTP2, there are several improvements available and some rules have change when we talk about web optimization. Most of the PageSpeed tools will recommend you to use domain sharding or to combine your assets to have a website faster. But is it still true ?

The most important feature of the HTTP2 is the multiplexing, it allow to download multiple files with an unique TCP connection when we have to open a new one for each file in HTTP1.1

1) No more assets concatenation

We used to combine as much as possible our assets with HTTP1.1, that’s not true with HTTP2 anymore. Because if it reduce the size of the requests done, it also make the rules for caching harder to define and could have bad results if you don’t need a part of the assets on each page of your website

2) No more domain sharding

It was already a “trick” but the domain sharding is not a part of the past. It was used to open more TCP connection than a browser was supposed to. But you will have a negative result by using it with HTTP2 because it will only require unnecessary DNS request and more if the connection is established under TLS.

But there are also rules which are still Best Pratices to have a fast website

Reduce DNS lookup -> store all assets on the same domain or with a CDN
Browser Caching
Minimize HTTP Requests -> cookies and query strings
Minimize HTTP Response -> Minify your assets

How Cloudflare speed up and protect your website - Part 1.

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 18:57:00 +0000

You don't know what is Cloudflare ? So let's see how cloudflare make your website loading faster, and why you should already use it for all your websites.

) Cloudflare DNS - Free & Fast

Cloudflare provide at first one of the best DNS hosting service available. And to make a website faster you can already start with using a fast DNS hosting.

DNS Provider Speed Comparison by solvedns.com

![/images/2016/10/draw.jpg)

It's only few Milliseconds but as you can see, Cloudflare is faster than many other providers and most of them offer paid services only. So before paying few dollars for a Premium DNS package, you should try cloudflare. Another feature you will love, is a propagation time around 5 minutes when you edit a record on your DNS. So if you need to migrate your website soon, this is really a good reason to register now.

2. ) Cloudflare - Reverse Proxy with caching

But cloudflare does not provide only DNS Hosting. It's also a complete solution to speed up and secure your website. For that when Cloudflare manage your DNS if you activate the optimization and security (orange cloud), instead of sending your server IP when a visitor make a DNS request, it will act as a proxy and all your visitors will view only the Cloudflare servers IP when they do a request.

![/images/2016/10/overview.png)

And Cloudflare will not only act as a simple proxy, it will also cache all the static files and deliver them all around the World to your visitors from the nearest Cloudflare datacenter.

The result is awesome because it will make your website faster as it will handle less requests, and it will also save a lot of bandwidth by limiting the number of file requests.

As you can see, with 80 000 visitors per month, it's more than 20GB of bandwidth saved and also more than 20GB of static assets which have been delivered faster.

3) Cloudflare - Website Protection

By acting as a proxy Cloudflare also provide a complete security solution which include :

Browser integrity check : Each visitor request is checked using the HTTP header and if a thread is found it can be challenged using a captcha or blocked.
Visitor reputation : Cloudflare analyze daily thousands of IP, and if a visitor try several times to perform any form of hack, it will be marked as a potential thread for Cloudflare
Page rules : You can use the page rules to allow or disallow access to a part of your website. For example with wordpress your can use a high level of secuirty onthe page http://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php to protect your website.
DDoS protection : As your visitors have to use cloudflare servers to get access to your website, they will never have access to your server IP and any attack attempt will simply be blocked by the Cloudflare servers.

But to protect totally your server, you have to be sure there is not any records which point directly to your server. The most common error will be to have a email server with a MX record pointing on your server IP. In this case, Cloudflare will not be able to protect your website because the attacker will send the traffic directly on your server IP, and will not have to use the Cloudflare proxy.

4) Cloudflare - Website Optimization

And if it wasn't enough, Cloudflare is also able to optimize your website. It can minify all your assets, including the html, reduce the number of connections, and with rocket loader it will make deliver your assets asynchronously. That mean instead of waiting for each file to be downloaded, with cloudflare your browser will download all the assets in the same time when you visit your website, and it will be up to 3x times faster.

The last optimization tool available for free is Rocket Loader, currently in beta, it's a script used by cloudflare to deliver your assets, without blocking the page display. It use the asynchronous loading to load your javascript at the end of the page display and this way it will really improve your pagespeed score. But like any beta, it could create error with some javascript or break your website design by loading too late some assets.

For this reason you have 2 mode to use Rocket loader :
- Automatic : Rocket loader will optimize any javascript available on your website but you have the ability to forbid the optimization manually by adding data-cfasync="false" before the script source.
```
<script type="text/javascript" data-cfasync="false" src="/js/tether.min.js"></script>
```
Manual : This time you will have to add data-cfasync=“true” for each script you want to optimize with Rocket Loader

I will complete this article with the HTTP2 and Cloudflare in the next few days.

[Review] Plesk - A powerful web server control panel

Fri, 20 May 2016 15:08:00 +0000

Like anyone who want to manage easily multiple websites on a VPS or a dedicated server, i was looking for a control panel with good performance and ready for production. I have tested many control panels : (following panel are ranked by me and it's only my personal opinion)

CentOS webpanel (free) : To young to be use in production, but many good features (varnish cache + nginx + Apache) and it will be always free.
cPanel (paid) : The most powerful after plesk and cheap, but only compatible with Apache
Serverpilot.io (free and paid) : First cloud control panel, the easiest to run a WordPress website on a VPS. Many awesome features with the paid level (10$ / month) like free ssl, http2, nginx reverse proxy etc.. For me you should try it and it will be one of the best panel in the next years.
Ajenti (free) : Good panel with many features and a good compromise between interface configuration and text config. But i have no feeling with it.
Webmin (free) : If the design don't hurt your eyes, it's a complete control panel with many features and with good documentation.

And the last which is not a control panel yet because it have no GUI, easyengine.io, only for Power User at the moment but one of the lightest web server manager, and a good website with many tutorials.

But today i will make a small review of Plesk, the best control panel for me.

1) What is Plesk ?

Plesk is a full control panel, you can manage multiple website with a clean web interface, it's really secured and always update. There are 3 pricing plans depending on what you want : - Web Admin (10 domains) : to run some website on a VPS it's perfect - Web Pro (30 domains) : including the WordPress toolkit, it's the best ratio quality/price - Web Host (no limit) : If you want to run your own web hosting services

2) But why should I choose Plesk as control panel ?

Because you can test it for free during 15 days ? No, it's not the only reason. I recommend to try (to use) Plesk because it's a control panel for any webmaster. There is 3 views available, from the beginner view with simple configuration (domain, database, ftp) to the power user view with full access to advanced features like nginx config, PHP config, firewall etc You can use Plesk with or without web hosting knowledge, and you will find a documentation for you at Plesk's website.

As you are waiting for features :

For Beginner : - Website builder (you haven't to code) - Many Apps you can install in a single click : Wordpress (with themes, plugins and update management), Prestashop, PhpBB, MyBB, Drupal, Joomla - Security : SSL in 2 clicks with let's encrypt, backup to ftp or dropbox, webmail - Softaculous available (59 ready to install apps)

For Power User (yes i know you are waiting for real features and it's for them i love Plesk) :

Performance : - Nginx reverse proxy with caching (disk or memcache) - Apache 2.4 with HTTP2 - Multiple PHP version from 5.4 to 7.0 and PHP-FPM (so easy to use ) - Many PHP extension : GD, ioncube, opcache, - Last MariaDB release - Litespeed web server (i haven't test it yet) - JXCore and NodeJS (if you want trending techno) - Java, ruby, python, .Net support - DNS management - Docker (only in Plesk Onyx, in beta currently)

Security : - Monitoring, logs, backup with increment - mod_security, firewall and fail2ban - SSL - Google authentication - Cloudflare integration - Antispam - Antivirus - file scanner - ddos protection

And if you want to (or already have) run your own web hosting company, Plesk is available as VMware or KVM image, with Cloudlinux (Linux distribution for hosting company)

I don't think i need to tell you more about Plesk features, but it's for them I use plesk in production. The most important for me is the security, and with fail2ban, a firewall, free ssl management and cloudflare integration,I'm sure to avoid most dangers. And the feature which decide me to choose Plesk is the Nginx Reverse proxy to handle all static files faster and with less res sources usage. But I'm maybe trying too much to sell you Plesk, so like it's a user review, I will also talk about the negative aspects of Plesk :

- There is a good documentation online, but if you have never use nginx before -> start learning how nginx work now because the Plesk documentation explain how it's work but there is not any how to .. I have lost many hours to understand nginx and how to configure it correctly with Plesk - There is no free version : if you can try it during 14 days, you have to pay after. And I recommend you to buy it from your hosting company if you can, it will be cheaper than the Plesk Store. Prices (for VPS) : 5$ for the Web Admin, 15$ for the Web Pro, 25$ for the Web Host But you can have nice discounts with your hosting company, and sometimes it will be free with a dedicated server. Currently I pay 9$ a month for the Web Pro. - There are many apps and extensions available but some of them are not free. - It can be frustrating sometimes (often ^^) to use a full control panel like Plesk, because you are not free to add modules to nginx, to install something not included in Plesk. It's a very powerful tools if you accept to use only included tools. Don't think about adding Pagespeed modules, or to setup a custom version of Apache. With the version 17, you can customize your PHP modules but not more.

There are good and bad aspects with Plesk, like any control panel but I recommend it to any beginner who want to start using a VPS and to manage himself. And I recommend it too, to Power Users because if you can't customize all components, you will have a stable and powerful web server with features normally reserved to "trending control panels in beta". So now it's time to add a referral link and to earn some money But i'm not a Plesk Partner yet ...

Quick summary of my review :

Control panel to try : Serverpilot.io ( everybody should try it ) Plesk ( Read again from the beginning if you don't know why ..)

FAQ : Can I use Plesk if i'm a beginner ? Yes but you need to buy a VPS or a dedicated.

Can I try it for free ? yes you only have to register with a valid email.

How can i install it ? First Go to Plesk Website to read server requirement. On any recent linux OS :

## Plesk 12.5 auto-installer
sh <(curl http://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer || wget -O - http://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer)

## Plesk Onyx auto-installer
sh <(curl http://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer || wget -O - http://autoinstall.plesk.com/one-click-installer) --tier testing

## Run Plesk 12.5 with Docker
docker run --privileged -d -it -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 8880:8880 -p 8443:8443 -p 8447:8447 plesk/plesk

## Run Plesk Onyx with Docker
docker run -d -it -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 8880:8880 -p 8443:8443 -p 8447:8447 plesk/plesk:preview

What OS should I choose for Plesk ? Debian 8 64Bits

Can I install Plesk on a small VPS ? Yes, for testing i run it on a 3$ VPS with only 2GB RAM. But for production 4GB is a minimum if you use the mail server or the DNS server.

I need some help with Plesk ! Read the doc, browse Plesk knowledge base, and PM me if you don't find what you need.

Plesk is too expensive for me ! Buy it from your web hosting company to get nice discounts. With OVH -> Web Admin Plan cost 2$ a month on VPS

Are you working for Plesk ? No, i have only lost too much time to setup web servers and to try many control panels before trying Plesk.

I use another Panel currently, can i migrate to Plesk ? Yes, it's a paid solution, they always have many tools to help you to buy a license ^^

Feel free to ask anything about Plesk here. I'm also open to all suggestions or opinions.

This review is my personal opinion about control panels.

Plesk is maybe not the best control panel for you, and there are many alternative to Plesk.