7 ms·

Thanks for hugging my site to death! It's hosted on a $5 DO droplet and I'm honored to have this problem. https://archive.ph/AVbPV https://archive.ph/AVbPV

by tjwds 4y ago

anonimou 4y ago
Hey. Nice post. I was thinking about this same problem for a couple of days. Another question I have is: do we have a higher number of top-level comments on a given number of months or not?
DeathArrow 4y ago
Now you can write another article about how you optimized the site to handle HN traffic. :)
- russellendicott 4y ago
  I love this idea: "Cheapest way to run a static site that can handle hugs of death".
eatonphil 4y ago
Do you serve static files? Static file server on a $5 DO droplet should handle the HN front page. There's also free tiers on many CDNs like Fastly/Cloudflare. Github Pages is also free.
- tjwds 4y ago
  I used to use zola hosted on Github Pages, but I wanted to improve the publishing workflow, and WordPress was a good fit for that. (Notes on the migration here: https://blog.joewoods.dev/technology/technical-notes-on-migrating-from-zola-to-wordpress/ https://blog.joewoods.dev/technology/technical-notes-on-migr...)
  - eatonphil 4y ago
    Check out this thread for recommendations on static site generator plugins on top of Wordpress. Best of both worlds for folks who want high-level publishing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396961
    - ushakov 4y ago
      you don't even need those a cache with long-enough TTL will do the magic for you https://mish.co/posts/always-cache-your-website/ https://mish.co/posts/always-cache-your-website/
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - iampims 4y ago
        A (local) cache is mostly useful for repeat visitors, not for thousands of unique visitors unless you use a CDN.
  - ushakov 4y ago
    funny to hear that i actually migrated from Wordpress to Zola
  - tedmiston 4y ago
    Putting the Cloudflare CDN free plan in front should solve the hug of death problem. https://www.cloudflare.com/performance/ensure-application-availability/ https://www.cloudflare.com/performance/ensure-application-av...
  - freedomben 4y ago
    I run a few big sites on WordPress, and would totally recommend you use the simply static plugin, and configure nginx to serve those cached files directly so it never hits php. I also usually put cloudflare in front as well, but you can have a screaming fast wordpress site that scales really far by itself without it just with that trick. If you need some dynamism, w3 total cache is also a great choice. If you're not an nginx hacker, there are some great examples around the internet. This page is pretty helpful: https://wordpress.org/support/article/nginx/ https://wordpress.org/support/article/nginx/
- spyder 4y ago
  Even DO has their free tier for static hosting with global CDN and DDoS mitigation: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-deploy-a-static-website-to-the-cloud-with-digitalocean-app-platform https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-depl... Looks like the free one has only 1GB outbound transfer which wouldn't be enough for a single hug, but the $5/month one has 40GB which might be enough for a hug with text only content.
andrewxdiamond 4y ago
For simple static sites like this, sticking a default Cloudflare stack in front helps a lot
- coip 4y ago
  you’d (I’d) think ~managed cdn serving an s3/blob origin would be a no brainer. Hell, GitHub pages even: BYODomain, + hosting/automation/cdn… Where’s the free lunch in that line of thinking? which cases are a droplet better in?
  - coip 4y ago
    (Now that I’ve tried to RTFA, it seems homie has a runtime dependence (db?) or something colocated on the host failing? OWASP, right? Having a resource limit reached maybe? Nextjs seems like a cool approach to manage partially ~runtime-dynamic systems like this/cms/etc)
  - Frotag 4y ago
    Being able to recycle the vps for other self-hosted apps is nice (eg vpn, dns-level adblock, etc). Also not having to learn another tech for something you'd only have to set up once every year or few years.
paxys 4y ago
A $5 DO droplet will easily handle peak HN traffic with a bit of optimization. Set cache headers, cache static assets on the server side (or even better, with an external CDN), or even cache the entire page if there's no dynamic content.
- polote 4y ago
  Even without optimization. Peak HN traffic is in the 20 req per second order of magnitude
  - Laforet 4y ago
    Without optimization, Nginx defaults to allowing a maximum of one worker process with 512 connections and 60s timeout. 20 unique visitors per second will lead to 500 errors in less than a minute.
    - weird-eye-issue 4y ago
      Are you assuming each request takes a second, or how long? A blog should return fast enough that this isn't the case Edit: Yes, even WordPress. Unless there are 50 plugins, an unoptimized theme, zero caching, and a resource constrained server.
      - Laforet 4y ago
        It does not matter how fast the backend is. A persistent HTTP connection will last 60 seconds following the latest client request, unless the browser goes out of its way to explicitly close the connection. P.S. OP's website uses Apache but the same issue of overly conservative limits still apply.
        harikb 4y ago
        I can’t imagine a case where the browser wouldn’t do the decency of closing a connection.
mobilio 4y ago
Another link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220608222735/https://blog.joewoods.dev/technology/hackernews-who-is-hiring-top-level-comments-over-time/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220608222735/https://blog.joew...
soheil 4y ago
It's a static site, no reason for the server not to be able to handle thousands of connections at once with almost no configuration changes with some like Nginx or Apache. Or even a domain which points directly to a S3 bucket. Hope you're not looking at devop roles on who is hiring posts.
- robjan 4y ago
  It's a WordPress blog
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
lamontcg 4y ago
So the "pullback" seems similar to the one that was seen in pre-pandemic 2019. That about correlates to my impression that this is not the recession.
mountaineer 4y ago
I run https://www.hntrends.com https://www.hntrends.com on a $5/month box and never had a problem with spikes. Generated, static resources all the way.
jasfi 4y ago
Then you need a faster web framework or CMS. Nexus is made with Nim and is designed to be fast (https://github.com/jfilby/nexus https://github.com/jfilby/nexus). But most problems like that can be solved with caching no matter which tech you're using.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  They were grateful the thing got so much attention, and deferred to other hosts to supplement serving that attention. Not looking for uptime solutions.
  - jasfi 4y ago
    Faster software will always save you time, money and effort.

Thanks for hugging my site to death! It's hosted on a $5 DO droplet and I'm honored to have this problem. https://archive.ph/AVbPV https://archive.ph/AVbPV

by tjwds 4y ago

Thanks for hugging my site to death! It's hosted on a $5 DO droplet and I'm honored to have this problem. https://archive.ph/AVbPV https://archive.ph/AVbPV

anonimou 4y ago

Hey. Nice post. I was thinking about this same problem for a couple of days. Another question I have is: do we have a higher number of top-level comments on a given number of months or not?

DeathArrow 4y ago

Now you can write another article about how you optimized the site to handle HN traffic. :)

russellendicott 4y ago
I love this idea: "Cheapest way to run a static site that can handle hugs of death".

eatonphil 4y ago

Do you serve static files? Static file server on a $5 DO droplet should handle the HN front page. There's also free tiers on many CDNs like Fastly/Cloudflare. Github Pages is also free.

tjwds 4y ago
I used to use zola hosted on Github Pages, but I wanted to improve the publishing workflow, and WordPress was a good fit for that. (Notes on the migration here: https://blog.joewoods.dev/technology/technical-notes-on-migrating-from-zola-to-wordpress/ https://blog.joewoods.dev/technology/technical-notes-on-migr...)
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Check out this thread for recommendations on static site generator plugins on top of Wordpress. Best of both worlds for folks who want high-level publishing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396961
  - ushakov 4y ago
    you don't even need those a cache with long-enough TTL will do the magic for you https://mish.co/posts/always-cache-your-website/ https://mish.co/posts/always-cache-your-website/
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - iampims 4y ago
      A (local) cache is mostly useful for repeat visitors, not for thousands of unique visitors unless you use a CDN.
- ushakov 4y ago
  funny to hear that i actually migrated from Wordpress to Zola
- tedmiston 4y ago
  Putting the Cloudflare CDN free plan in front should solve the hug of death problem. https://www.cloudflare.com/performance/ensure-application-availability/ https://www.cloudflare.com/performance/ensure-application-av...
- freedomben 4y ago
  I run a few big sites on WordPress, and would totally recommend you use the simply static plugin, and configure nginx to serve those cached files directly so it never hits php. I also usually put cloudflare in front as well, but you can have a screaming fast wordpress site that scales really far by itself without it just with that trick. If you need some dynamism, w3 total cache is also a great choice. If you're not an nginx hacker, there are some great examples around the internet. This page is pretty helpful: https://wordpress.org/support/article/nginx/ https://wordpress.org/support/article/nginx/
spyder 4y ago
Even DO has their free tier for static hosting with global CDN and DDoS mitigation: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-deploy-a-static-website-to-the-cloud-with-digitalocean-app-platform https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-depl... Looks like the free one has only 1GB outbound transfer which wouldn't be enough for a single hug, but the $5/month one has 40GB which might be enough for a hug with text only content.

andrewxdiamond 4y ago

For simple static sites like this, sticking a default Cloudflare stack in front helps a lot

coip 4y ago
you’d (I’d) think ~managed cdn serving an s3/blob origin would be a no brainer. Hell, GitHub pages even: BYODomain, + hosting/automation/cdn… Where’s the free lunch in that line of thinking? which cases are a droplet better in?
- coip 4y ago
  (Now that I’ve tried to RTFA, it seems homie has a runtime dependence (db?) or something colocated on the host failing? OWASP, right? Having a resource limit reached maybe? Nextjs seems like a cool approach to manage partially ~runtime-dynamic systems like this/cms/etc)
- Frotag 4y ago
  Being able to recycle the vps for other self-hosted apps is nice (eg vpn, dns-level adblock, etc). Also not having to learn another tech for something you'd only have to set up once every year or few years.

paxys 4y ago

A $5 DO droplet will easily handle peak HN traffic with a bit of optimization. Set cache headers, cache static assets on the server side (or even better, with an external CDN), or even cache the entire page if there's no dynamic content.

polote 4y ago
Even without optimization. Peak HN traffic is in the 20 req per second order of magnitude
- Laforet 4y ago
  Without optimization, Nginx defaults to allowing a maximum of one worker process with 512 connections and 60s timeout. 20 unique visitors per second will lead to 500 errors in less than a minute.
  - weird-eye-issue 4y ago
    Are you assuming each request takes a second, or how long? A blog should return fast enough that this isn't the case Edit: Yes, even WordPress. Unless there are 50 plugins, an unoptimized theme, zero caching, and a resource constrained server.
    - Laforet 4y ago
      It does not matter how fast the backend is. A persistent HTTP connection will last 60 seconds following the latest client request, unless the browser goes out of its way to explicitly close the connection. P.S. OP's website uses Apache but the same issue of overly conservative limits still apply.
      - harikb 4y ago
        I can’t imagine a case where the browser wouldn’t do the decency of closing a connection.

mobilio 4y ago

Another link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220608222735/https://blog.joewoods.dev/technology/hackernews-who-is-hiring-top-level-comments-over-time/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220608222735/https://blog.joew...

soheil 4y ago

It's a static site, no reason for the server not to be able to handle thousands of connections at once with almost no configuration changes with some like Nginx or Apache. Or even a domain which points directly to a S3 bucket. Hope you're not looking at devop roles on who is hiring posts.

robjan 4y ago
It's a WordPress blog
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

lamontcg 4y ago

So the "pullback" seems similar to the one that was seen in pre-pandemic 2019. That about correlates to my impression that this is not the recession.

mountaineer 4y ago

I run https://www.hntrends.com https://www.hntrends.com on a $5/month box and never had a problem with spikes. Generated, static resources all the way.

jasfi 4y ago

Then you need a faster web framework or CMS. Nexus is made with Nim and is designed to be fast (https://github.com/jfilby/nexus https://github.com/jfilby/nexus). But most problems like that can be solved with caching no matter which tech you're using.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
They were grateful the thing got so much attention, and deferred to other hosts to supplement serving that attention. Not looking for uptime solutions.
- jasfi 4y ago
  Faster software will always save you time, money and effort.