Comments on: Anatomy of a Fireballing

By: Links for 8-9-2010 | Sue Cline

Links for 8-9-2010 | Sue Cline — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:30:01 +0000

[...] get Fireballed: great ode to WP-Super Cache, which we support, and includes links to Anatomy of a Fireballing – I love these analytical breakdowns so we can help our clients be prepared for internet [...]

By: Ian Betteridge

Ian Betteridge — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:50:12 +0000

@cimota If you're on WordPress, some good advice from @jearle at http://blog.23x.net/216/anatomy-of-a-fireballing.html

By: Patrick Burleson

Patrick Burleson — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:45:58 +0000

@danwood @gruber will knock your server around pretty good. http://blog.23x.net/216/anatomy-of-a-fireballing.html

By: Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:57:08 +0000

Man Goes from No Traffic to Some Traffic. WordPress Dies. http://blog.23x.net/216/anatomy-of-a-fireballing.html (Seriously, WP?)

By: Mark Jaquith

Mark Jaquith — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:37:06 +0000

Dave : My question is this – why is Wordpress by itself so inefficient at caching pages? It seems silly to me that a default install is so un-resiliant as to bring down a server if it gets a lot of views, which is just about everyone’s goal. It seems there should be a better caching component, with the ability to turn off for debugging, within the core WP code.

Because it has to run on the least common denominator setup. We can't rely on Memcached, APC, Xcache or even the filesystem. As someone mentioned above, some hosts don't want you to use WP-Super-Cache, probably because they have a distributed filesystem and all those file writes are going to mess things up. This is a good problem to have, but it's not one that a lot of WordPress users ever have to worry about. It just seems like it is. You don't notice the 10 million WordPress blogs that handle their load without breaking a sweat. You notice the ones you click to from Digg or Daring Fireball. If you look at the 80/20 thing, it's probably not even 1 percent — forget 20 percent or 80 percent. We are talking a lot about the idea of "canonical plugins" — plugins that are featured from with WordPress, are well-supported, secure, stay up-to-date. "Caching" is definitely one of the areas we think could benefit from a canonical caching plugin (and until then, WP-Super-Cache is probably the right choice for most people on shared hosting).

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:03:47 +0000

@David Chin I've had that happen a few times as well after a spike. Hostgator at least help you through the process of installing supercache or something a bit meatier if that doesn't work out.

By: Hedirman Supian

Hedirman Supian — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:18:53 +0000

@patlaw Thought of installing wp-super-cache? Might help till u get tt dedicated server http://bit.ly/8oYNA7

By: Jared Earle

Jared Earle — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:16:17 +0000

Dave :
My question is this – why is Wordpress by itself so inefficient at caching pages?

I suspect it's because of the widgets: widgets make a stupid amount of SQL calls and, if you're not running memcached or similar, it's SQL that fails first. What WP should do is have WP-Super-Cache as part of the default install, turned off or at a safe level.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:39:50 +0000

Nice post on Wp-super-cache. I use it on my own site which handles the occasional spikes well. As soon as I take it off, my blog will essentially take down the server. Fun huh?

My question is this – why is WordPress by itself so inefficient at caching pages? It seems silly to me that a default install is so un-resiliant as to bring down a server if it gets a lot of views, which is just about everyone’s goal. It seems there should be a better caching component, with the ability to turn off for debugging, within the core WP code.

Thanks again.

By: Donncha O Caoimh

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:01:34 +0000

@Hty Blogs at WordPress.com will easily handle the traffic from Fireball, no problem at all. Site wouldn't even notice it. @Skirkster - do they use NFS to host their sites? That might be why they don't recommend it.