VPS specifications recomendations

[dgshields]

Our forum's Database is around 1.4G and we have had issues of different kinds with each shared hosting company we have used. The last issue was with MySQL errors and the hosting provider suggested clearing the system cache (which seemed like a totally off the wall suggestion)...

Lately, the site has been slowing down when posting or moving messages. Clearing the cache may improve things for a while (perhaps a day) and then things start slowing down again...

I have the cache clearing task running every 5 minutes now, however, the cache itself does not appear all that large, compared to the total database size...

Is it time to consider a VPS? If yes, what specs should I be looking at for:

Cores
Ram
HD
Bandwidth

and, are there recommended settings for MySQL? Or, is MarinaDB a better choice, and does it have recommended settings for vBulletin?

FYI, we are running 5.3.4 at this time - is there anything in the later versions that addresses performance issues? We have avoided updates as we would prefer to not have to take the forum down for maintenance...

Thanks for any info anyone has about this!

[glennrocksvb]

For security alone, I highly recommend you upgrade to the latest version ASAP. There were security vulnerabilities (zero-day bug) on vB5 that were recently discovered and exposed to the public. A lot of vB5 forum sites were hacked and are still being hacked to this day. This forum was not an exception and although I've cleaned up the mess and upgraded to the latest version, I still see from the logs multiple attempts by hackers trying to see if this site is still vulnerable. If you forum has not been hacked yet, then it's a matter of time yours will be. vBulletin has released security patches but as part of their policy, they only make them available to the last 3 vB versions. This makes your site vulnerable today. That's why I recommend you to upgrade ASAP. Then worry about VPS later. Just make sure you have at least PHP 7.1 and MySQL 5.6.10 or MariaDB 10.0

For VPS recommendations, try reading this thread: https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/ge...s-or-dedicated

[dgshields]

For security alone, I highly recommend you upgrade to the latest version ASAP. There were security vulnerabilities (zero-day bug) on vB5 that were recently discovered and exposed to the public. A lot of vB5 forum sites were hacked and are still being hacked to this day. This forum was not an exception and although I've cleaned up the mess and upgraded to the latest version, I still see from the logs multiple attempts by hackers trying to see if this site is still vulnerable. If you forum has not been hacked yet, then it's a matter of time yours will be. vBulletin has released security patches but as part of their policy, they only make them available to the last 3 vB versions. This makes your site vulnerable today. That's why I recommend you to upgrade ASAP. Then worry about VPS later. Just make sure you have at least PHP 7.1 and MySQL 5.6.10 or MariaDB 10.0

For VPS recommendations, try reading this thread: https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/ge...s-or-dedicated

I have already applied what is needed for that nasty vulnerability the day it was released (via reverse engineering and then updating 5.3.4's code) - we had minor intrusions, which I was able to resolve rapidly as well...

Thanks for pointing out the importance of this!

Will look at the other thread....

[glennrocksvb]

Good to hear that you were able to quickly resolve the hacking issue.

Aside from security patches, vBulletin has made (and is continuously making) performance improvements in 5.4.x and 5.5.x versions. Seeing that you are 10 or so versions behind, I still recommend upgrading to the latest version.

[dgshields]

Good to hear that you were able to quickly resolve the hacking issue.

Aside from security patches, vBulletin has made (and is continuously making) performance improvements in 5.4.x and 5.5.x versions. Seeing that you are 10 or so versions behind, I still recommend upgrading to the latest version.

It is in the plans, we just have to figure out a window where we can take the forum down for the update. Any estimate on amount of time that should take and any "gotchas" to look out for?

Thanks again!

[glennrocksvb]

I think it would be better to move from Shared to a VPS server first before upgrading.

[dgshields]

I think it would be better to move from Shared to a VPS server first before upgrading.

Thanks, that makes sense - less "moving parts" to worry about. As we have moved twice before and the last time I had to get things working, I am comfortable with the nuances vBulletin needs to keep running. I have a VPS I am configuring as a test and will be migrating a copy of our site over to make sure I have all the pieces identified. Am in the process of securing the VPS first...