I run a Discourse forum behind Cloudflare, and getting the WAF rules right took more trial and error than I expected. Discourse is a Ruby on Rails application that most people self-host in a Docker container. It handles traffic differently from a typical CMS, and generic Cloudflare WAF rules will either break your forum or […]
Articles tagged: performance
systemd-analyze: Debug and Optimize Your Linux Boot Time
If your Linux system takes longer to boot than you think it should, the answer is almost certainly hiding in your systemd startup chain. The good news: systemd already ships with everything you need to find the problem and fix it. No extra tools required, no guesswork. In this guide, you will use systemd-analyze to […]
30 Linux Sysadmin Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed
As a Linux server admin or Linux desktop user, you rely on familiar tools to manage your systems. But have you ever wondered what other tools might simplify your workflow, improve efficiency, and solve common Linux problems? Whether you’re looking into Linux system health, performance monitoring, security hardening, backups, or just general Linux administration, there […]
Linux Updates: Command Line Guide
Updating your Linux system is one of the most important things you can do to keep it secure, stable and running well. With updates, you can patch vulnerabilities, fix bugs and access new features. This article covers updating via the command line, automating updates for different distros, troubleshooting common issues and kernel updates to keep […]
Reduce Disk Writes on Debian & Ubuntu (Server & Desktop)
Every write to disk costs something, whether it’s wearing down an SSD, slowing I/O on a busy server, or draining battery on a laptop. One of the biggest offenders is logging. Between systemd-journald, web server access logs, and application-level logging, a default Debian 13 (Trixie) or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS system writes a lot to disk. […]
VPS IOPS vs. Latency: Why NVMe Benchmarks Lie
Every VPS provider loves to advertise NVMe storage. It sounds fast on paper and is usually a noticeable upgrade over older disk (HDD) and traditional SSD storage. The problem is that those IOPS numbers on their own often tell you very little about how your server will feel under typical loads. IOPS measures throughput: how […]
Why Small VPSs Feel Slower Than They Used To
Servers aren’t what they used to be. If you’ve spun up a small VPS (Virtual Private Server) recently and felt underwhelmed by its snappiness, you’re not alone. A basic 1-core CPU with 1 GB RAM VPS was reasonably responsive a decade ago, yet today’s entry-level instances sometimes struggle under similar workloads. This article digs into […]
Free vs. Available Memory in Linux
At times, we need to know precisely how a Linux system is using memory. This article explains how to interpret memory usage using the free command and, more importantly, how to correctly understand the difference between free and available memory on Linux systems. Free vs. Available memory explained What exactly is free memory, and how […]
Why Your Linux Server “Looks Idle” but “Feels” Slow
Servers can sometimes appear idle yet still perform sluggishly. This scenario is common across web hosting servers, database servers, VPS or cloud instances, or even containerized workloads. In all mainstream Linux distributions, the core reasons and diagnostics are similar. Below, we explain why an “idle” server might be slow and how to diagnose the real […]
What is Linux iowait? (Explained With Examples)
iowait (wait, wa, %iowait, wait%, or I/O wait) is often displayed by command-line Linux system monitoring tools such as top, sar, atop, and others. On its own, it’s one of many performance stats that provide us insight into Linux system performance. I/O wait came up in a recent discussion with a new client. During our support […]
