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You can do country blocking at server's CSF Firewall level outlined at https://www.liquidweb.com/kb/how-to-block-traffic-by-country-in-the-csf-firewall/. The guide shows CSF Firewall gui control panel but Centmin Mod CSF Firewall doesn't use gui control panel so you need to edit CSF Firewall config file using linux text editor at /etc/csf/csf.conf from step 2 of that linked guide. The settings names in the article are still the same so you need to find those settings in /etc/csf/csf.conf...

Below is a quick guide on how to install and enable GeoIP 2 Nginx module, ngx_http_geoip2_module support in Centmin Mod 123.09beta01 or newer versions to utilise Maxmind's GeoIP 2 Lite database. Prep work on Maxmind's GeoIP 2 Lite database support via GeoIP 2 Nginx module, ngx_http_geoip2_module started back in May 2018 to eventually replace the older legacy GeoIP database nginx module as Maxmind's GeoIP legacy database downloads are now deprecated and ended after January 2019 (though database updates stopped back in April 2018)

An example of how I use GeoIP 2 Nginx module can be seen ...

Centmin Mod 123.09beta01 and higher allow you to optionally install all the multi-threaded compression tools via centmin.sh menu option 17 (see below). I built a custom tar 1.31 RPM for CentOS 6.x & 7.x 64bit based Centmin Mod 123.09beta01 or higher installations which has native zstd compression support which allows faster and smaller sized tar + zstd compressed files...

Like I did for PHP 7.2 benchmarks, starting some PHP 7.3 comparison benchmarks as PHP 7.3.0 GA Stable is coming on December 3, 2018 and currently PHP 7.3.0RC6 is latest. Centmin Mod 123.09beta01 is needed to support PHP 7.2 and 7.3 fully and is being tested with multiple PHP-FPM versions via Remi SCL Yum Repository ...

Latest Centmin Mod 123.09beta01's Nginx now supports BoringSSL crypto library along with optional alternatives like LibreSSL and OpenSSL for Nginx HTTP/2 HTTPS usage. To enable BoringSSL TLS v1.3 support with Centmin Mod Nginx HTTP/2 HTTPS server, follow the instructions...

Centmin Mod LEMP stack installations are already auto optimised and tuned out of the box based on dedicated server resources available (memory installed, disk space and speed, cpu model used) and based on the server environment detected (Xen, KVM, OpenVZ, Linux Kernel supported features). There are some general configuration tips which will allow you to even further improve Centmin Mod LEMP stack server performance overall. Some of these tips can offer an extra 5-20%...

Guide outlines some of the ways you can keep informed of Centmin Mod related updates. Best place is watching/subscribe to the software news forums all nginx, php and centos relevant updates especially for security get posted to them Software News | Centmin Mod Community Support Forums. Each forum has a RSS icon next to it's last thread linked name, so you can even subscribe within your RSS feed aggregator/app or mobile/desktop etc. You can also use your own Slack channel...

There is a lot of information documented and posted about Centmin Mod and to new folks it can seem overwhelming. So here's a quick 6 step guide to learning more about Centmin Mod...

This thread is for all current and future Centmin Mod LEMP stack users to just highlight something that maybe obvious to some but not others. Today's Centmin Mod newbies are tomorrow's future Centmin Mod experts As the first batch of Centmin Mod users right now, you are the pioneers and potentially the future Centmin Mod experts with a unique skill set and know-how in all things related to installing and managing a Centmin Mod LEMP stack based server...

Centmin Mod has a lot of documentation on official centminmod.com site and forums which is highly suggested reading if you want to learn about and use Centmin Mod LEMP stacks. But here's a quick guide to installing Centmin Mod 123.09beta01 on recommended CentOS 7.x 64bit fresh virgin OS...

Centmin Mod 123.09beta01 has a cminfo command which allows you to obtain some basic information regarding your Centmin Mod environment, software versions, nginx vhost, pure-ftpd virtual ftp users, nginx/php config info, log listing and network & CSF firewall stats...

Guide outlines how to track some Centmin Mod config file changes which do not automatically get sync'd on Centmin Mod centmin.sh menu option 23 submenu option 2 updates and needing manual changing and visual comparisons for. Centmin Mod generally does not auto change config files after post initial install unless it's a security or severe bug fix. The reason is because, end users can customise their config files themselves for their needs and auto making changes may break the end users customised settings...

From the custom Cloudflare logging done on Centmin Mod Nginx backend origin server, I can see that my Centmin Mod Nginx origin server is using RSA 2048bit SSL certificate hence RSA based SSL/TLS handshake communication with Cloudflare on backend. Hence, I know I can improve the performance by switching my Centmin Mod Nginx to a new SSL certificate using ECC 256bit ECDSA if I wanted more speed...

If you're using Cloudflare in front of your Centmin Mod Nginx web server, then you may want to add custom Nginx access logging for Cloudflare related metrics such as CF-RAY header as well as SSL protocol and ssl ciphers served (previous example)...

With inspiration from @ethanpil work and my fail2ban work, I am now doing some testing for CSF Firewall native layer 7 application level protections similar to what fail2ban would do but without needing fail2ban to be installed. The thresholds for banning IPs in CSF Firewall for these native rules will need fine tuning and testing so best you test on test Centmin Mod server. Testing and feedback will help improve the rule sets and eventually an addon would be created so folks can optionally install and/or uninstall this CSF Firewall extended functionality...

This guide explains how to configure and setup PHP-FPM status monitoring with Nixstats and Nginx Amplify monitoring service. Centmin Mod installed PHP-FPM server has support for PHP-FPM status monitoring via 127.0.0.1/phpstatus within SSH but you need to enable it first before following the respective setup and configuration guides by Nixstats and Nginx Amplify...

Nginx 1.13.9 mainline web server release marks the official support for HTTP/2 Server Push - a feature of HTTP/2 which was left out of Nginx HTTP/2 until now. For most Centmin Mod users, waiting for official Nginx 1.13.9 release is probably best. You can follow Nginx mainline branch roadmap and Nginx release page or...

PHP 7.2.0 GA Stable release came out a while ago. But only found the free time to update my PHP 7.2.0 comparison benchmarks for PHP 7.2 vs 7.1 vs 7.0 vs 5.6 which I have been posting since PHP 7.2.0 first alpha build...

Quick wrk load testing comparison benchmarks between Centmin Mod Nginx 1.13.8 using cloudflare zlib performance forked library for HTTPS based compressed static index file tests versus Nginx 1.13.8 with Google ngx_brotli module for brotli compression instead. First set of compression level 1-9 tests are for cloudflare zlib and second set are for ngx_brotli based...

This thread is dedicated to review and benchmarks for Packet.net - a bare metal cloud provider that offers on demand hourly, reserved, spot and privately deployed bare metal servers. Packet.net offers bare metal servers and recently announced roll out AMD EPYC 7401P 24 core/48 thread servers as well with AMD EPYC 7401P details as well as Intel Xeon Gold 5120 Scalable processors too...