webpagetest optimisation

I've been doing some testing with https://www.webpagetest.org/ - Great tool. I am still getting around 1.5 seconds first-byte time. I tested locally with wget, and got similar results. I did another test with a DokuWiki site on the same server, and I was getting 0.15 seconds first-byte time.

 

I know it is not the web server, since I the two sites are on the same server. Boonex is configured to use XCache as a page cache. I've followed all of the other common page tuning... The admin tools checks are generally all green.

 

What would you suggest to try and get this first byte time down a little?

Quote · 3 Apr 2018

You could always swap your ISP with me. On a good day, it takes about 15 to 20 seconds  to resolve a cached page, 30 seconds to a minute to load one when the cache has just been cleaned.

Average times on a bad day which is usually Monday to Sunday, try up to three minutes and often "never". On Saturday nights it's impossible to reach the site. 

And I pay $50 a month for 21 gig of that garbage. Until NBN arrived about three months ago, I wasn't able to get ADSL because there weren't any free slots in the local exchange. I'm forced to use mobile data which I share with 20,000 kids on their twiddle boxes. I live 5km from the city centre.

I hope that brightens your day. Having said that, here's a few tips:

https://www.boonex.com/n/500_speed_improvement_of_dolphin_

https://www.boonex.com/trac/dolphin/wiki/HostingServerSetupRecommendations

I hope you're able to save a nano-second, not that it will make a huge difference to me.

Quote · 3 Apr 2018

Thanks for the comments. I am self-hosted. Thanks for the offer anyway :)

 

But lets analyse the problem. First byte is defined by webpagetest.org as "The target time is the time needed for the DNS, socket and SSL negotiations + 100ms. A single letter grade will be deducted for every 100ms beyond the target."

 

Webpagetest measures this for me at 1.5 seconds on average. To eliminate DNS, I did a test from the server itself.

 

time (wget -q -O- http://www.example.com/index.php > /dev/null)

 

real0m1.100s

user0m0.003s

 

sys0m0.003s


Note: I added index.php to avoid any redirects within the web service. This is the raw time excluding SSL (since its just HTTP) and excluding DNS (since its localhost resolving on that server). This excludes as many external factors as possible, but 1.1 seconds is not acceptable in my opinion.

 

So - lets look under the hood. Details from the host tool are below. As you can see, all recommended tweaks are complete. All checks show OK. I had a look at MonYog (a MySQL / MariaDB database analysis tool). The report shows nothing to indicate any problems with SQL query responses for this database. Individual queries are short enough... but what I don't know at this point is the number of queries upon loading an index.php page.

 

FYI - I am using the expires module and the deflate module in my setup... but they would not impact first byte time.

 

Keen to get any advice from others where to look next.

 

Audit   Permissions   PHP Info

Software requirements

  • PHP: 5.4.16 - OK
    • allow_url_fopen = On - OK
    • allow_url_include = Off - OK
    • magic_quotes_gpc = Off - OK
    • memory_limit = 786432000 - OK
    • post_max_size = 58720256 - OK
    • upload_max_filesize = 58720256 - OK
    • register_globals = Off - OK
    • safe_mode = Off - OK
    • disable_functions = - OK
    • php module: curl = curl - OK
    • php module: gd = gd - OK
    • php module: mbstring = mbstring - OK
    • php module: xsl = xsl - OK
    • php module: json = json - OK
    • php module: fileinfo = fileinfo - OK
    • php module: openssl = openssl - OK
    • php module: zip = zip - OK
    • php module: ftp = ftp - OK
    • php module: calendar = calendar - OK
    • php module: exif = exif - OK
  • MySQL: 5.5.40-MariaDB-wsrep - OK
  • Web-server: Apache 
    • rewrite_module - OK
  • OS: Linux server 2.6.32-042stab128.2 #1 SMP Thu Mar 22 10:58:36 MSK 2018 x86_64 

Hardware requirements

Hardware requirements can not be determined automatically - manual server audit may be reqired.

Site setup

  • Dolphin version = 7.3.5 - OK
  • files and folders permissions 
    Please click here to find out if dolphin permissions are correct.
  • ffmpeg
    ffmpeg version 2.8.5-static http://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/  Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
      built with gcc 4.9.3 (Debian 4.9.3-10)
      configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-shared --disable-debug --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libwebp --enable-libspeex --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libfreetype --enable-fontconfig --enable-libxvid --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-gray --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libass --enable-gnutls --enable-libvidstab --enable-libsoxr --enable-frei0r --enable-libfribidi --disable-indev=sndio --disable-outdev=sndio --cc=gcc-4.9
      libavutil      54. 31.100 / 54. 31.100
      libavcodec     56. 60.100 / 56. 60.100
      libavformat    56. 40.101 / 56. 40.101
      libavdevice    56.  4.100 / 56.  4.100
      libavfilter     5. 40.101 /  5. 40.101
      libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
      libswresample   1.  2.101 /  1.  2.101
      libpostproc    53.  3.100 / 53.  3.100
    Hyper fast Audio and Video encoder
    usage: ffmpeg [options] [[infile options] -i infile]... {[outfile options] outfile}...
    
    Use -h to get full help or, even better, run 'man ffmpeg'
    
    if you don't know if output is correct then manual server audit may be reqired.
  • mail sending - click here to send test email to USER@EXAMPLE.COM
  • cronjobs
    no crontab for **username**
    
    if you are unsure if output is correct then manual server audit may be reqired.
  • last cronjob execution time - 04.04.2018 02:01
  • media server 
    Please follow this link to check media server settings. Also you can try video chat - if video chat is working then most probably that flash media server is working correctly, however it doesn't guarantee that all other flash media server application will work.
  • forums 
    Please follow this link to check if forum is functioning properly. If it is working but '[L[' signs are displayed everywhere, then you need to compile language file (you maybe be need to compile language file separately for every language and template you have).

Site optimization

  • PHP:
    • PHP accelerator = XCache - OK
    • PHP setup = fpm-fcgi - OK
  • MySQL:
    • key_buffer_size = 134217728 - OK
    • query_cache_limit = 1048576 - OK
    • query_cache_size = 33554432 - OK
    • query_cache_type = ON - OK
    • max_heap_table_size = 268435456 - OK
    • tmp_table_size = 268435456 - OK
    • thread_cache_size = 128 - OK
  • Web-server:
    • User-side caching for static conten = click here to check it in Google Page Speed 
      If it is not enabled then please consider implement this optimization, since it improve perceived site speed and save the bandwidth, refer to this tutorial on how to do this. 
      To apply this optimization you need to have expires_module Apache module - OK
    • Server-side content compression = can be checked manually or in "Page Speed" tool build-in into browser. 
      If it is not enabled then please consider implement this optimization, since it improve perceived site speed and save the bandwidth, refer to this tutorial on how to do this. 
      To apply this optimization you need to have deflate_module Apache module - OK
  • Dolphin:
    • DB cache = On (XCache based cache engine) - OK
    • Page blocks cache = On (XCache based cache engine) - OK
    • Member menu cache = On (XCache based cache engine) - OK
    • Templates Cache = On (XCache based cache engine) - OK
    • CSS files cache = On - OK
    • JS files cache = On - OK
    • Compression for CSS/JS cache = On - OK

Manual Server Audit

Some things can not be determined automatically, manual server audit is required to check it. If you don't know how to do it by yourself you can submit BoonEx Server Audit Request.

 

Quote · 4 Apr 2018

@JohnK42: John, having read your comment above, I will never complain about my connection speeds again. I feel your pain :(

 

Ed

It ain't easy being this stupid all of the time
Quote · 4 Apr 2018
 
 
Below is the legacy version of the Boonex site, maintained for Dolphin.Pro 7.x support.
The new Dolphin solution is powered by UNA Community Management System.