I thought it was a bit rude for this site to look so good but perform so poorly. So I decided to knock off one of the items on my list of accomplishments for ’09 – number #3 ‘Get this VPS running a lot faster’.

I was getting alerts about there being issues with high amount of swap being used and high IO usage (attributed to the amount of swap that was being used)

Here’s a look at what the box was running initially:

jared@kippage:~$ free -m
total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           256        236         20          0          1         37
-/+ buffers/cache:        196         59
Swap:          511        274        237

Not good right? Look at how much swap is being used. Ridiculous. So I started to do a bit of investigation.

I killed all Apache processes and the amount of swap reduced by double. Interesting I thought. I took Apache out of the startup scripts and did a quick reboot. Interestingly, there was no swap being used.

I decided to google for information about Slicehost and performance issues with Apache.

This slice only has 256mb RAM. Not a whole lot, especially when Apache starts getting greedy.

I stumbled accross the following articles:

• http://pig-monkey.com/2008/06/10/an-ubuntu-vps-on-slicehost-basic-setup/
• http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=945&page=1#Item_0
• http://articles.slicehost.com/nginx

All of these articles seemed to shed A LOT of information on the benifits of getting nginx (main page here) up and running.

After having nginx running for the last hour or so I have noticed a dramatic improvement in the speed of the site. At present this is what the memory situation looks like:

jared@kippage:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           256        229         27          0          4         36
-/+ buffers/cache:        188         67
Swap:          511          0        511

So you can see by just installing nginx I have managed to get rid of my machine using swap all together.

I’ll keep an eye on the statistics for the site and see if the site continues to run at these speeds.

I have noticed however, a few 504 gateway timeout issues which I think I may have resolved. Will keep an eye out though.

If all goes to plan we’ll start seeing more performance out of nginx which means a better browsing experience for you guys!

On another note, make sure you check out slash slash dawt, there’s some great stuff coming out of that place!

If you use twitter be sure to add us! @jadz0r and @kippage. If you don’t use twitter, sign up! It’s great!

Jared

So I’ve decided to compile a list of things to accomplish in ’09. I know it’s a little late, but better to be late than never.

Here is my list in no particular order:

1. Actively make an effort to put quality content on kippage.com
2. Make some money through kippage.com
3. Get this VPS running a lot faster
4. Increase traffic to kippage.com
5. Learn the fundamentals of playing the guitar
6. Learn at least 5 songs on the guitar
7. Start learning French  again
8. Help Luke get www.slashslashdawt.com going
9. Write a set of online web tools to make my life easier
10. Invest a lot more time in learning the inner workings of C# and the .NET framework
11. Read the books that work gave me to read!
12. Drink and party less (Except for the end of the year)
13. Start selling my photography
14. Tweet more!
15. Get at least 100 people following me on twitter. Add jadzor now!
16. Make an effort to watch more arthouse films
17. Listen to new styles of music
18. Help Ben with getting jukey up and running
19. Tart up my study and bedroom with some homebrew art
20. Save cash
21. Stop smoking
22. Start looking at upgrading camera body
23. Take at 100 book worthy photos
24. Start compiling artwork for a new photography book
25. Start looking at a new laptop (new or secondary … eeepc??)
26. Read more fictional novels
27. Write something in GTK#!
28. Contribute something to open source software. Maybe something for MediaPortal
29. Look at next overseas adventure
30. Stop breaking headphones
31. Lose at least 30kg
32. Continue to play sports. At least twice a week
33. Look at selling car and using public transport  (eeek?)
34. Complete portfolio site
35. Get my eyes checked out at the optometrists again

Well that’s it for now.

If I think of more things later, I will update the list and let everybody know!