VPS Management & Optimization

4.1 Monitoring VPS Performance

Keeping track of your VPS performance helps ensure it runs smoothly. Here are essential tools:

Check System Resource Usage

CPU & Memory Usage: top or htop # More user-friendly, install with `apt install htop`
Disk Usage: df -h
Check Active Processes: ps aux --sort=-%mem | head -10 # Top 10 memory-consuming processes

Set Up Real-Time Monitoring

Glances – A comprehensive system monitoring tool: apt install glances -y glances
Netdata – A web-based real-time monitoring tool: bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh)

4.2 Optimizing VPS Performance

1️⃣ Enable Swap Space (For Low RAM VPS)

If your VPS has low RAM, enable swap space to prevent crashes.

fallocate -l 2G /swapfile  
chmod 600 /swapfile  
mkswap /swapfile  
swapon /swapfile  
echo "/swapfile none swap sw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

2️⃣ Optimize Apache & Nginx

For Apache, enable compression:

a2enmod deflate  
systemctl restart apache2

For Nginx, add gzip compression in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

gzip on;
gzip_types text/plain application/json text/css;

Restart Nginx:

systemctl restart nginx

3️⃣ Optimize MySQL Performance

Use MySQLTuner to analyze and suggest optimizations:

apt install mysqltuner -y  
mysqltuner

4.3 Automating VPS Management

1️⃣ Set Up Automatic Updates

For Debian/Ubuntu:

apt install unattended-upgrades -y dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades

For CentOS/Rocky Linux:

yum install dnf-automatic -y  
systemctl enable --now dnf-automatic.timer

2️⃣ Set Up Cron Jobs for Maintenance

To schedule daily updates, edit the crontab:

crontab -e

Add:

0 3 * * * apt update && apt upgrade -y

This runs system updates at 3 AM daily.

4.4 Backup & Disaster Recovery

1️⃣ Automatic Backups with Rsync

Sync important files to a backup server:

rsync -avz /var/www/ user@backup-server:/backups/

2️⃣ Backup MySQL Databases

Create a daily database backup:

mysqldump -u root -p --all-databases > /backups/db-$(date +\%F).sql

Add to cron for daily backup:

0 2 * * * mysqldump -u root -p'yourpassword' --all-databases > /backups/db-$(date +\%F).sql

4.5 Securing Your VPS Further

1️⃣ Set Up 2FA for SSH (Google Authenticator)

apt install libpam-google-authenticator -y  
google-authenticator

Enable in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes

Restart SSH:

systemctl restart sshd

2️⃣ Enable Automatic Ban for Failed SSH Attempts (Fail2Ban)

nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

Add:

[sshd] enabled = true maxretry = 3 bantime = 3600

Restart Fail2Ban:

systemctl restart fail2ban

Conclusion

With these optimizations, your VPS will run faster, more securely, and efficiently.

In the next chapter, we’ll cover Deploying Applications on VPS, including setting up WordPress, Node.js, and Laravel.

Browse

Want to chat?

Social