Archive for the 'Tools' Category

vpsset

Published on April 14, 2009 in Tools. 9 Comments

vpsset it's a command line tool which allows you to resize your Dreamhost PS server.

You may use it at your crontab to reduce your memory and CPU settings when you have low traffic, and rise it when you usually expect higher one. Also you may use vpsset as a pre-script and post-script tool for some resource intensive scripts, like backups or whatever you need.

Usage it's pretty simple, just type at your command line: <vpsset value>, where value it's the new size of your PS. Previously you need to setup an API key at DreamHost's Web Panel API, and update vpsset.cfg file with your custom data.

Feedback it's welcomed :)

Download:

Update 18/04/2009:

Current vpsset version it's for the new Dreamhost PS, the 64bits based. Old PS server run 32bits versions and vpsset won't. My apologies for those who tried in an old PS server and had problems.

I'm trying to find another machine to compile a 32bit version. Added 32bit download vpsset version.

How to know your PS type?

Just type: <uname -a> at your shell. You may get these results:

  • Ending with x86_64 GNU/Linux: 64bit version, the new PS servers.
  • Ending with i686 GNU/Linux: 32bit version, the previous PS servers.

vpsadjust is back!

Published on March 18, 2009 in Tools. 5 Comments Tags: , .

Yes! After one year of freezing, vpsadjust will be back again. And thanks to the new API that Dreamhost has published. API which I already mentioned at Febrery 2008 here. It took some time - one year -, but better latter than never, don't you think?

Right now, I'm testing it's new behaviour but as you may see in the following graph, it's working as it should be:

mem1h

Isn't awesome? :)

I hope to bring you fresh news pretty soon.

Next steps on getting more performance with LiteSpeed webserver

Published on February 28, 2008 in Tools and Tutorial. 0 Comments

As we said on a previous article, we were waiting for the last chapters on tunning our LiteSpeed webserver. Finnaly, yui-life.com's webmaster has published in two articles the steps to get a custom PHP5 with eAccelerator and some tips on tunning the webserver.

I have tested his solution and I can say I’m quite happy with it, indeed I was also sharing a FastCGI + APC accelerator for two other domains and at the end I have migrated all of them (five) to the LiteSpeed solution.

You can read the articles at the following links:

Litespeed on Dreamhost PS: Final Optimizations for Stability and Lowest Cost
Compiling PHP5 and eAccelerator for Litespeed on Dreamhost PS

I have only one problem using LiteSpeed Standard proxied behind Apache, and it’s related to some web applications (like WordPress 3.3.4) use the header $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] to get the visitors IP instead of $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'], so the recorded IP it’s your own VPS IP, as it’s the one who sent you the request. Remember, Apache’s mod_proxy has been previously configured to send you the traffic to a running port of your LiteSpeed server.

Continue reading 'Next steps on getting more performance with LiteSpeed webserver'

Two new tools in the forge

Published on February 14, 2008 in Tools. 1 Comment

As I had to stop vpsadjust development due this unforeseen event, I started to prepare two new tools which I think could be useful for any Dreamhost PS owner. Right now I only have the ideas and expected features, with the time we'll see the final result. The tools are the following:

  • vpsguardian. This tool will replace in some way the job done by vpsadjust, as right now it's not possible to have automatic resources configuration, this tool will provide information and trigger actions to help you maintain stable your CPU and memory settings. The different behaviours will be configurable. Main features:
    • When memory is running out will disable crawlers access in all the domains by replacing or updating robots.txt to all denied. As soon the resources are spare again previous robots.txt file will be restored.
    • When memory is running out and CPU is too high, some of the previously configured domains will be set to a redirected custom webpage. This action it's to lower load average and memory usage to let high priority domains have spare resources (i.e. e-commerce websites). The custom webpage could have a standard message saying something like "We are having a heavy usage spike. Please come back later". As soon the resources are spare again, redirection would be disabled. Continue reading 'Two new tools in the forge'

Bye bye vpsadjust

Published on February 14, 2008 in Tools. 11 Comments

Today, Dreamhost decided to add a captcha system at the server usage web page, so no more automated adjustment of CPU/Memory settings is possible.

v1cgi.png

It's quite obvious that Dreamhost noticed there were some tools around there using smart decisions on server usage, and that wasn't helping their incomes, and adding this human-detection system was the easiest way to stop those tools. In my opinion, there are other solutions, like avoiding changing settings with certain frecuency, or even offering an API to use Vserver calls funcionality.

Continue reading 'Bye bye vpsadjust'

vpsinfo: your PS status in a browser

Published on January 27, 2008 in Tools. 1 Comment

From the original site:

vpsinfo is a Linux server monitoring script, written in PHP, that provides web access to system status information. It gathers the output from several common Linux commands into one web page, providing a quick overview of the system's current state.

This script coded by Doubles T. Robbins was coded for VPS (Virtual Private Servers) based on Virtuozzo and OpenVZ systems, and for that reason does not work properly on VServer systems, used by Dreamhost PS.I have made a few patches on the original script (version 2.3.2) to enable all those features that were not working on our PS and I'm sharing this patched version.Clicking in the following picture you may see an example of the look and feel of vpsinfo under a Dreamhost PS:

vpsinfo

To enable mysql reports, you need to configure these variables at the vpsinfo.php file: Continue reading 'vpsinfo: your PS status in a browser'