1. Check Server Health

CPU & Load

uptime
top
htop

Healthy values:

• Load average should generally be below the number of CPU cores.
• CPU idle should remain high during normal traffic.

Memory

free -h

Healthy values:

• Swap usage = 0 (or minimal)
• Available RAM should not be close to 0.

Disk Usage

df -h

Keep partitions below 80–85% usage where practical.

Disk Performance

Install:

sudo apt install sysstat -y

Check:

iostat -xz 1 5

Healthy values:

• %util < 70%
• await ideally < 10 ms on SSD/NVMe
• Low aqu-sz

2. Nginx Optimization

Edit

sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Recommended Configuration

user www-data;

worker_processes auto;
worker_rlimit_nofile 65535;

events {
    worker_connections 4096;
    multi_accept on;
}

http {

    sendfile on;
    tcp_nopush on;
    tcp_nodelay on;

    keepalive_timeout 65;
    keepalive_requests 1000;

    types_hash_max_size 4096;

    client_max_body_size 100M;

    server_tokens off;

    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;

    gzip on;
    gzip_vary on;
    gzip_proxied any;
    gzip_comp_level 5;
    gzip_min_length 1024;

    gzip_types
        text/plain
        text/css
        application/json
        application/javascript
        application/xml
        text/xml
        application/xml+rss
        image/svg+xml;

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

Test Configuration

sudo nginx -t

Reload:

sudo systemctl reload nginx

3. PHP-FPM Optimization

Edit:

sudo nano /etc/php/8.2/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Recommended starting point for a server with ample RAM:

pm = dynamic

pm.max_children = 40
pm.start_servers = 8
pm.min_spare_servers = 8
pm.max_spare_servers = 16

pm.max_requests = 500

Restart:

sudo systemctl restart php8.2-fpm

Check for Worker Exhaustion

sudo grep "server reached pm.max_children" /var/log/php8.2-fpm.log

If you see:

server reached pm.max_children

increase pm.max_children.

4. PHP OPcache

Check:

php -i | grep opcache

Recommended:

opcache.enable=1

opcache.memory_consumption=256

opcache.interned_strings_buffer=32

opcache.max_accelerated_files=50000

opcache.validate_timestamps=1

opcache.revalidate_freq=2

opcache.save_comments=1

Restart PHP:

sudo systemctl restart php8.2-fpm

5. MySQL/MariaDB Optimization

Check running queries:

mysqladmin processlist

or

SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST;

Install MySQLTuner:

sudo apt install mysqltuner -y

mysqltuner

Enable slow query logging:

slow_query_log=1

long_query_time=2

6. Enable Redis

Use Redis for:

• WordPress Object Cache
• Laravel Cache
• Sessions
• Queues

Install:

sudo apt install redis-server

Verify:

redis-cli ping

Expected output:

PONG

7. Enable FastCGI Cache (Optional)

Suitable for:

• WordPress
• CMS
• Mostly static PHP pages

Benefits:

• Reduces PHP execution
• Lowers database load
• Improves Time To First Byte (TTFB)

8. Monitor Resource Usage

CPU:

htop

Disk:

iotop

Network:

iftop

Open files:

lsof

9. Monitor Nginx

Access log:

tail -f /var/log/nginx/access.log

Error log:

tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log

10. Monitor PHP

Service status:

systemctl status php8.2-fpm

Workers:

ps aux | grep php-fpm

Logs:

tail -f /var/log/php8.2-fpm.log

11. SSL Optimization

Use only modern protocols:

ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;

12. Security

Hide Nginx version:

server_tokens off;

Limit upload size if required:

client_max_body_size 100M;

13. Useful Commands

Check listening ports:

ss -tulpn

Check services:

systemctl status nginx
systemctl status php8.2-fpm
systemctl status mysql

Restart services:

sudo systemctl restart nginx
sudo systemctl restart php8.2-fpm
sudo systemctl restart mysql

14. Performance Checklist

• ✅ worker_processes auto
• ✅ worker_connections 4096
• ✅ worker_rlimit_nofile 65535
• ✅ gzip enabled
• ✅ sendfile enabled
• ✅ tcp_nopush enabled
• ✅ tcp_nodelay enabled
• ✅ keepalive_timeout 65
• ✅ PHP OPcache enabled
• ✅ pm.max_children sized for workload
• ✅ Redis enabled (if applicable)
• ✅ Slow query log enabled
• ✅ PHP-FPM logs monitored
• ✅ Nginx configuration tested before reload
• ✅ Regular system updates and log review

Notes from your server

Based on the diagnostics we performed on your Ubuntu server:

• 30 vCPUs
• 62 GB RAM
• CPU usage was below 1%
• Disk utilization was around 1–3%
• No swap usage
• The main bottleneck was PHP-FPM, with repeated server reached pm.max_children setting (5) warnings.

Increasing the PHP-FPM pool size was the most impactful optimization because the server had ample CPU and memory but was limiting concurrent PHP requests to five workers.

For a hosting environment with multiple websites, consider creating separate PHP-FPM pools for high-traffic sites so one busy application cannot consume all PHP workers and affect the others.