Hi

welcome @BBent to Centmin Mod Community. Besides server research, might want to check out Centmin Mod LEMP stack itself too. There's 6 steps to learning more about Centmin Mod

You might want to try the 123.09beta01 build as it will be next stable release and well has alot of improvements if you check 2nd post change log at Beta Branch - Centmin Mod .09 beta branch Testing. And you can share your initial install times here.

If you use Putty SSH client, for best Centmin Mod experience set your windows setting configuration to at least 160 columns, 70 rows and 256000 scrollback buffer size.

Threads you might want to participate in

• What are you using Centmin Mod for ?
• How did you find out about Centmin Mod ?
• What PHP Version do you use ?
• How much memory installed on server running Centmin Mod ?
• Fill out Centmin Mod 2016 Survey
• Attention Future Centmin Mod Experts !

Threads & Info To Bookmark

Threads to read, pages to bookmark and threads to watch/subscribe to get to know Centmin Mod would include:

• Getting Started Guide, FAQ, Config Files and What's New and centmin.sh guide.
• Install - Nginx - MariaDB - Letsencrypt - Quick Centmin Mod Install + Nginx Vhost Site + MySQL Database Setup
  
• Insight Guide - How to boost Centmin Mod LEMP stack performance
  
• Centmin Mod 123.09beta01's Letsencrypt SSL integration via addons/acmetool.sh
• How to Install Centmin Mod 1.2.3-eva2000.08 Stable - you'd want to bookmark or subscribe to this thread for updates to the code, bug fixes, security updates etc.
• How to upgrade Centmin Mod 1.2.3-eva2000.08+ stable
• How to troubleshoot initial installs (as well as find the log files for all software for troubleshooting).
• Centmin Mod Configuration Files Overview
• Centmin Mod + Youtube Resources - recently created to illustrate visually what Centmin Mod can do. Alot of the vidoes are to showcase Centmin Mod .08 betas features which eventually will become the next stable release.
• All things SSL https related at SSL - HTTPS as a Google ranking signal
• Centmin Mod Insights forum - delve deeper into Centmin Mod code if you want to tweak it or extend it yourself. Find out how PHP Opcode cachers like APC Cache, Zend Opcache and Xcache are configured and installed and how Memcached server is setup etc.
• Several ways to follow Centmin Mod code development and changes/commits via Github Commit forum or directly on Centmin Mod Github repository - 123.08stable branche
• For forums, also check threads in dedicated Forum Software Usage forums. Some Xenforo users including myself have posted out Nginx vhost configs at Xenforo - My Xenforo Nginx vhost configuration
• If you're playing with Xenforo 2.0 Dev Preview releases, you'd want to read Xenforo - Xenforo 2 installation
• For Nginx Pagespeed check out the official site page for Centmin Mod's integration of ngx_pagespeed module. Also check out the prefix linked forum url Nginx, PHP-FPM & MariaDB MySQL | Centmin Mod Community easy way to jump into all threads and info related to ngx_pagespeed. In particular bookmark the Nginx PageSpeed Troubleshooting sticky thread as there is high chance you need to tweak your Nginx pagespeed.conf config file for your web apps and styles used. You can see an example of this forum's pagespeed.conf tweaked for Xenforo and my particular used Xenforo style/theme and some discussion of troubleshooting advertising and ngx_pagespeed.
• Nginx example configuration listing at centminmod.com/nginx_configure.html
• SSH login MOTD displayed text changes
• Official Centmin Mod Linode StackScript install method

Centmin Mod Insights Forum

The Centmin Mod Insights forums digs deeper into the inner workings of Centmin Mod so some useful threads in this forum include:

• Centmin Mod Command Shortcuts
• Upgrade - How to upgrade Centmin Mod + backing up customisations
• Nginx - Developer Overview: How Nginx is installed on Centmin Mod LEMP stack
• [Guide] Save time creating Nginx vhost & MySQL users and databases
• Nginx - How to properly password protect a directory or file?
• Redis - How to install Redis server on Centmin Mod LEMP stack
• Centmin Mod Site Data Migration Guide
• How To Transfer cPanel/WHM Sites To Centmin Mod LEMP Servers
• tools/backup-perm.sh backup & restore file/directory permissions
• Adding Additional IP Addresses
• keep track of Centmin Mod installed software updates

Security Related Developments

A few security related developments you might be interested reading about

• fail2ban + csf Security - Cloudflare - fail2ban for Centmin Mod + CSF Firewall / Cloudflare API
• bad bot blocking/rate limiting Security - Blocking bad or aggressive bots
• modsecurity support Beta Branch - update prep for ModSecurity v3.0
• enabling CSF Firewall blocklists and advance blocklists selectively if you have non-OpenVZ system that supports IPSET
• Nginx also supports connection, rate and bandwidth limiting natively which maybe useful and Nginx - Nginx rate limiting new article

Premium Membership

• Centmin Mod Premium Membership Benefits - including access to custom tailored dbbackup.sh mysql database backup script and updates/improvements.

Centmin Mod Donations

You now can show your love and support for Centmin Mod via

• Bitcoin Donations
• Patreon
• Paypal Donate