linux

In Linux systems, memory management is crucial for maintaining system stability and performance. One component at the heart of this process is the "Out-Of-Memory (OOM) Killer." This process steps in when your system is critically low on memory. It selectively terminates one or more processes to free up memory and prevent a system crash. However, the intervention of the OOM Killer can be disruptive, as it might terminate essential or high-priority processes.

I recently acquired two budget-friendly Virtual Private Servers (VPS) from OranMe, one featuring a 0.1 CPU with 128MB RAM and the other a 0.5 CPU with 512MB RAM. These low-spec servers are not ideal for heavy usage but can be efficient for specific tasks. To maximize their performance, I chose Debian without a desktop environment, aiming to reduce system load.

Nginx is a high-performance web server known for its efficiency, especially in terms of memory usage, fast startup times, and handling high concurrency. This makes it a popular choice for various internet projects.

Default Linux kernel parameters target general-purpose workloads. Servers handling high traffic, many connections, or heavy I/O need tuning. This guide covers the sysctl parameters that matter and why.

A container is not a virtual machine. VMs emulate hardware and run a full OS kernel. Containers share the host kernel and isolate processes using namespaces (which partition what a process sees: filesystem, network, PIDs, users) and cgroups (which cap what it uses: CPU, memory, I/O).