How to Manage Your Server Settings

Learn how to manage server settings on your Cloudways platform. Basic to Advanced setting configuration.

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Written by Cloudways Product
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Table of Contents

Cloudways does not offer server root access; however, several other options are provided to manage and tweak server settings according to your requirements using the Cloudways Platform.

How to Manage Your Server Settings

Log in to your Cloudways Platform using your credentials.

  1. From the top menu bar, open Servers.

  2. Next, choose your desired server.


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  3. Under Server Management, select Settings & Packages.


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Basic Settings

Under the Basic tab, you can control the basic settings of the server, such as the following:

  1. Execution Limit—This setting determines the maximum time a request is allowed to run across the stack. The default execution limit is 300 seconds. The recommended value is less than 900 seconds for optimum performance.

  2. Upload Size — Set a request's maximum allowed size (in MBs) across the stack. The default upload size is 100MB. The recommended value is less than 500MB.

  3. Memory Limit — Set the maximum memory (in MBs) that a PHP request can allocate. The default memory limit is 256MB. The recommended values are suggested below:

    1. 1GB RAM server: less than 512MB

    2. 2GB RAM server: less than 1024MB

    3. 4GB RAM & above server: less than 2048MB

  4. Display Error — Choose whether to display PHP error messages or not. By default, it is set to No.

  5. Error Reporting — Choose which level of errors PHP reports.

  6. PHP Timezone — Select a timezone for PHP.

You can update these values as per your requirements by clicking Save Changes.

Important

For PHP settings per application, use the PHP settings editor.


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Advanced Settings

Advanced Settings feature PHP, MySQL, Nginx, System, and Varnish settings. When you update these settings, remember to click Save Changes, which is located at the bottom of the page.

PHP

  1. Max Input Variables — Define how many input variables may be accepted (limit is applied to $_GET, $_POST, and $_COOKIE superglobal separately). The default max input variables are 10000. The recommended value is less than 15000.

  2. Max Input Time — Set the maximum time (in seconds) a script can parse input data, like POST and GET. The default max input time is 60 seconds. The recommended value is less than 300 seconds for optimum server performance.

  3. Opcache Memory — Select how much memory will be allocated for OPCache. The default Opcache memory is 64MB. The recommended values are suggested below:

    1. 1GB RAM server: less than 256MB

    2. 2GB RAM server: less than 512MB

    3. 4GB RAM & above server: less than 1024MB

  4. Short Open Tag — It tells PHP whether the short form (<? ?>) of PHP's open tag should be allowed. By default, it is off.

  5. xDebug — Enable or disable xDebug. It helps to debug your PHP applications better. By default, it is disabled.

  6. Zend Guard Loader — Enable or disable Zend Guard support on your server. You can use Zend Guard to protect your application from unlicensed use and reverse engineering. By default, it is disabled.

Important

The availability of the xDebug and Zend Guard Loader extensions depends on the PHP version running on your server, as not all PHP versions support these extensions. You can learn more about the PHP Extensions and Modules available with your Cloudways server.

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MySQL

  1. Timezone — Select a timezone for MySQL.

  2. Encoding — Select encoding for MySQL. By default, it is US ASCII.

  3. Max Connections Limit — Define the number of connections MySQL will support. By default, it is 150.

  4. Buffer Pool Size — Select the amount of memory to use to cache tables, indexes, etc.

  5. Lock Wait Timeout — Define the time a transaction will wait for a resource before giving up.

  6. Wait Timeout — Define the time that MySQL will wait before killing an idle connection.

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Nginx

  1. Access Application via IP Enable or restrict direct access to the default application via server IP address. If direct access to your default web application is enabled, your website will be accessible if the server's IP address is entered into the browser instead of the domain name. On the contrary, if direct access to your default web application is disabled, your website will be inaccessible when the server's IP address is entered instead of the domain name.

  2. Default ApplicationSelect or unselect the default application. If the default application is selected, it is served whenever unknown domain requests are received. If no default application is set, an error is shown whenever unknown domain requests are received.

  3. Static Cache Expiry — Set the Expires and Cache-control response header fields (in minutes). It is set to 525600 minutes by default, which can be adjusted according to your requirements. Setting the value to '0' will disable the cache.

  4. TLS Versions — TLS refers to Transport Layer Security. It is a cryptographic protocol that provides authentication, data integrity, privacy, and end-to-end communications between two devices connected over a network. By default, TLS 1.2 and 1.3 are enabled. You can enable or disable different TLS versions as per your requirement. Disabling TLS 1.3 is not supported.

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System

Locales — Add a new System Locale in addition to the default (English_US). To add a new System Locale, select your preferred language from the dropdown menu.

Varnish

Cache Lifetime — The time period for which Varnish caches content before being refreshed is called cache lifetime or Time-To-Live (TTL). The default value is set to 4 hours. You can also change the Varnish Cache Lifetime as per your requirement.

Finally, click Save Changes to save your settings.

Tip

Please also give us suggestions about other settings you'd like to see in the Cloudways Platform.

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Server Packages

Under the Packages tab, you can update the PHP and database versions, enable/disable Elasticsearch, install/uninstall Supervisord, and install Redis. You can also read more about the base packages deployed on your Cloudways server.

  1. PHP — Your new server is configured to use PHP 8.1 by default. You can always upgrade to the latest version, e.g., PHP 8.2, as per your requirements. Downgrading the PHP version has limitations, so you can view which PHP versions you can upgrade or downgrade to. You can also check available PHP extensions/modules and the application's compatibility with your chosen PHP version.

  2. MySQL — Our stack includes MariaDB 10.5 as the default database of your web application. You can always upgrade to the latest version, e.g., MariaDB 10.6, as per your requirements. You can not downgrade MariaDB packages.

  3. ElasticSearch — Elasticsearch is an open-source, highly available search engine custom-built for cloud servers based on the distributed restful API. You can enable and disable ElasticSearch from here. The available version is ElasticSearch 7.17.

  4. Redis — Redis is used to power up object caching using the Object Cache Pro plugin on your WordPress application. The available version is Redis 7.0.x. New servers have Redis and Object Cache Pro plugin installed by default; however, you can install Redis on your existing server from here if you have never installed it before. Installing Redis will also install the Object Cache Pro plugin on your WordPress applications. Once installed, you can not uninstall Redis, but you can disable it from the Manage Services section if it is no longer needed.

  5. Supervisord — Supervisord is a simple, fast worker manager designed to monitor and control the processes. It allows you to defer the processing of a time-consuming task to speed up the web requests to your application. You can install and uninstall Supervisord from here.

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That's it! We hope this article was helpful. If you need any help, then feel free to search your query on Cloudways Support Center or contact us via chat (Need a Hand > Send us a Message). Alternatively, you can also create a support ticket.

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