This manual is the result of our WordPress and VPS optimization for high load projects. By trial and error, we have found the best solution to meet the following criterias:
By default we took php 5.5 with opCache out of the box. You may use php 5.4 or later with APC, APCu.
This is the list of web server confs that we used in our tests:
As you can see there were a lot of difference confs, but we found the best solution for our purpose 
Best solution:
VPS hardware:
You may use this manual on other VPS or dedicated servers with RAM >= 1 GB, our tests on 512 mb of RAM still good but not enough for best performance.
1) Let’s add fresh repository:
deb http://packages.dotdeb.org wheezy all gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key 89DF5277 gpg -a --export 89DF5277 | sudo apt-key add -
2) Since we are using minimal Debian 7 wheezy, you may setup your own language (optional).
dpkg-reconfigure locales
3) Adding Ngninx repository http://nginx.org/en/linux_packages.html
wget http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key sudo apt-key add nginx_signing.key
In /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ wheezy nginx deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ wheezy nginx
4) Make & Install Nginx + pagespeed_mod http://serverfault.com/questions/605056/adding-pagespeed-module-to-installed-nginx/637116#637116
sudo apt-get install build-essential zlib1g-dev libpcre3 libpcre3-dev unzip mkdir -p /usr/src/nginx-pagespeed/ cd /usr/src/nginx-pagespeed/ sudo apt-get source nginx-full cd nginx-1.6.2/
Download last version of ngx_pagespeed
wget https://github.com/pagespeed/ngx_pagespeed/archive/release-1.9.32.2-beta.zip unzip release-1.9.32.2-beta.zip cd ngx_pagespeed-release-1.9.32.2-beta/ wget https://dl.google.com/dl/page-speed/psol/1.9.32.2.tar.gz tar -xzvf 1.9.32.2.tar.gz cd /usr/src/nginx-pagespeed/nginx-1.6.2
Configuring nginx (by default installation PATHs are different, so set them manually):
./configure --add-module=/usr/src/nginx-pagespeed/nginx-1.6.2/ngx_pagespeed-release-1.9.32.2-beta/ \ --prefix=/etc/nginx \ --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx \ --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf \ --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log \ --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log \ --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid \ --lock-path=/var/run/nginx.lock \ --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/client_temp \ --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/proxy_temp \ --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp \ --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/uwsgi_temp \ --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/scgi_temp \ --with-http_realip_module \ --with-http_addition_module \ --with-http_sub_module \ --with-http_dav_module \ --with-http_flv_module \ --with-http_mp4_module \ --with-http_gunzip_module \ --with-http_gzip_static_module \ --with-http_random_index_module \ --with-http_secure_link_module \ --with-http_stub_status_module \ --with-http_auth_request_module \ --with-file-aio \ --with-ipv6
If no errors, let’s make it!
make checkinstall
WARNING!!! Do NOT make install, DO checkinstall
sudo checkinstall --pkgname nginx --pkgversion 1.6-custom --install
After that, you will get this message:
Done. The new package has been installed and saved to
/usr/src/nginx-pagespeed/nginx-1.6.2/nginx_1.6-custom-1_amd64.deb
You can remove it from your system anytime using:
dpkg -r nginx
Make nginx directories:
mkdir -p /var/log/nginx/ /var/cache/nginx/client_temp
Go to http://kbeezie.com/debian-ubuntu-nginx-init-script/ and create /etc/init.d/nginx file, but dont forget to change DAEMON PATH.
DAEMON=/usr/sbin/nginx
Adding nginx into loader
/usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f nginx defaults
sudo apt-get install php5-fpm php5-cli php5-common php5-cgi php5-mysql php5-gd php5-apc memcached php5-memcached
Setup Zend opCache (if your php version 5.4 or less)
apt-get install -y php-pear apt-get install -y build-essential php5-dev pecl install zendopcache-7.0.3
Create WWW directory and other special magic:
mkdir /home/www chmod -R a-rwx,u+rwX,g+rX /home/www && chown www-data:www-data -R /home/www
Create directory for cache (we use tmpfs)
mkdir /run/shm/fcgi-cache/ chown www-data:www-data -R /run/shm/fcgi-cache/
Edit: /etc/php5/fpm/php-fpm.conf, it should be like this:
[global] pid = /var/run/php5-fpm.pid include=/etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/*.conf error_log = /var/log/php5-fpm/error.log log_level = warning daemonize = yes
Edit: /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf
[www] user = www-data group = www-data listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.$pool.sock listen.owner = www-data listen.group = www-data listen.allowed_clients = 127.0.0.1 pm = dynamic pm.max_children = 5 pm.start_servers = 2 pm.min_spare_servers = 1 pm.max_spare_servers = 3 pm.max_requests = 100 slowlog = /var/log/php5-fpm/slow.$pool.log request_slowlog_timeout = 9 chdir = / catch_workers_output = yes php_flag[display_errors] = off php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/php5-fpm/error.$pool.log php_admin_flag[log_errors] = on
Create directory:
mkdir /var/log/php5-fpm && chown www-data:www-data /var/log/php5-fpm
Then go to /etc/php5/mods-available and create opcache.ini
—>>> opcache.ini
# path to opcache mod zend_extension=/usr/lib/php5/20100525/opcache.so opcache.memory_consumption=128 opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8 opcache.max_accelerated_files=4000 # if your site more static you may increase this value opcache.revalidate_freq=60 opcache.fast_shutdown=1 # enable opcache interface for cli opcache.enable_cli=1
Create link:
sudo ln -s /etc/php5/mods-available/opcache.ini /etc/php5/conf.d/5-opcache.ini
Memcached configuration
sudo apt-get install memcached sudo apt-get install php5-memcache sudo apt-get install php5-memcached
Open Memcached config in /etc/memcached.conf and setup this values, pay attention to -m you may increase this value if you need (Standart WordPress blog with 1000 pages will take ~50-100mb in memcache)
-d logfile /var/log/memcached.log -m 256 -p 11211 -u nobody -l 127.0.0.1
If you want to monitor memcached stats, use this soft:
http://phpmemcacheadmin.googlecode.com/files/phpMemcachedAdmin-1.2.2-r262.zip
sudo apt-get install bsdutils <strong>(if you have minimal OS)</strong> sudo apt-get install mysql-server
MySQL phpAdmin (optional)
wget http://dl.cihar.com/phpMyAdmin/master/phpMyAdmin-master-latest.tar.gz
You may take any working nginx.conf (there are many of them, ask Google). We add 1 line in our currient config:
# Virtual hosts & pagespeed mod in conf.d include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf; include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
Create /etc/nginx/conf.d/pagespeed_mod.conf with this values:
pagespeed On; pagespeed FileCachePath "/run/shm/ngx_cache"; pagespeed FileCacheSizeKb 25600; pagespeed FileCacheCleanIntervalMs 3600000; pagespeed FileCacheInodeLimit 500000; pagespeed RewriteLevel PassThrough; pagespeed EnableFilters canonicalize_javascript_libraries,extend_cache,extend_cache_pdfs,combine_css,combine_javascript,move_css_above_scripts,insert_dns_prefetch,rewrite_javascript,rewrite_images,prioritize_critical_css,rewrite_css,rewrite_style_attributes,convert_meta_tags,lazyload_images,collapse_whitespace,move_css_to_head,remove_comments,remove_quotes,defer_javascript,inline_css,inline_javascript; pagespeed UseNativeFetcher on; resolver 8.8.8.8; pagespeed LRUCacheKbPerProcess 2048; pagespeed LRUCacheByteLimit 8192; pagespeed CreateSharedMemoryMetadataCache "/run/shm/ngx_shared" 6400; pagespeed CssInlineMaxBytes 1024; pagespeed JsInlineMaxBytes 1024; # Memcached pagespeed MemcachedServers "127.0.0.1:11211";
Pay attention to “EnableFilters” line and setup there filters that you need. Also pagespeed mod stores cache in tmpfs, but only if memcached is out of space, that’s why you need to configure your memcached server memory to more than you probably need