Your database is probably not what's eating your RAMPHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound themSizing MariaDB's buffer pool on a small VPSSwap is not optional on a small serverSoft 404s are quietly costing you search trafficYour sitemap might be lying to you10 essays · 5 sectionsYour database is probably not what's eating your RAMPHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound themSizing MariaDB's buffer pool on a small VPSSwap is not optional on a small serverSoft 404s are quietly costing you search trafficYour sitemap might be lying to you10 essays · 5 sections
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Your database is probably not what's eating your RAM Systems

Your database is probably not what's eating your RAM

AXAlien XP · Aug 3, 2026 · 3 min PHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound them Performance

PHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound them

AXAlien XP · Aug 1, 2026 · 3 min Real analytics from nginx logs, with no logging stack Craft

Real analytics from nginx logs, with no logging stack

AXAlien XP · Jul 20, 2026 · 2 min Swap is not optional on a small server Systems

Swap is not optional on a small server

AXAlien XP · Jul 28, 2026 · 2 min Soft 404s are quietly costing you search traffic Engineering

Soft 404s are quietly costing you search traffic

AXAlien XP · Jul 26, 2026 · 2 min
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#php#nginx#memory#mariadb#php-fpm#tuning#vps#seo#cms#postmortem

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Your database is probably not what's eating your RAM

Aug 3, 2026

PHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound them

Aug 1, 2026

Real analytics from nginx logs, with no logging stack

Jul 20, 2026

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Your database is probably not what's eating your RAM Systems

Your database is probably not what's eating your RAM

AXAlien XP · Aug 3, 2026 · 3 min
Performance

PHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound them

 Systems

Sizing MariaDB's buffer pool on a small VPS

 Systems

Swap is not optional on a small server

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RSS
Your database is probably not what's eating your RAM
Systems

Your database is probably not what's eating your RAM

A 1.7 GB MariaDB process looked like the obvious culprit. The real problem was a PHP script with no memory limit and a server with no swap.

Alien XP· 3 min Read more →
PHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound them
Performance

PHP-FPM workers never shrink. Here is how to bound them

A worker measured 30 MB when fresh and 97 MB forty hours later, on an idle server. Nothing was leaking — that is simply how PHP returns memory.

Alien XP· 3 min Read more →
Sizing MariaDB's buffer pool on a small VPS
Systems

Sizing MariaDB's buffer pool on a small VPS

Debian ships the setting commented out, so a multi-gigabyte database runs on a 128 MB cache and burns CPU re-reading the same pages forever.

Alien XP· 2 min Read more →
Swap is not optional on a small server
Systems

Swap is not optional on a small server

Without swap, the first allocation that cannot be satisfied is immediately fatal to something — and the kernel picks its victim by size, not by blame.

Alien XP· 2 min Read more →
Soft 404s are quietly costing you search traffic
Engineering

Soft 404s are quietly costing you search traffic

If every mistyped URL returns your home page with a 200, search engines will index all of them as real pages — and split your ranking across the duplicates.

Alien XP· 2 min Read more →
Your sitemap might be lying to you
Engineering

Your sitemap might be lying to you

A static sitemap.xml wins over any dynamic route, and a generator that walks the filesystem cannot see content stored in a database.

Alien XP· 2 min Read more →
The CLI php.ini is not the FPM php.ini
Field Notes

The CLI php.ini is not the FPM php.ini

An hour lost to a two-megabyte upload limit that did not exist, because the value came from the wrong SAPI.

Alien XP· 2 min Read more →
Real analytics from nginx logs, with no logging stack
Craft

Real analytics from nginx logs, with no logging stack

Page views, top pages and per-site traffic, from the file already on your disk — no JavaScript, no third party, no Elasticsearch.

Alien XP· 2 min Read more →
A media library should just be a folder
Craft

A media library should just be a folder

Every quota you invent is a second number to keep in sync with reality. The filesystem already knows how much space there is.

Alien XP· 2 min Read more →
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