Linux Performance Optimization

A collection of 140 little known Linux optimization commands for optimizing Linux VPS's and general Gaming Performance. Gaming devices such as the Steam Deck/Linux laptops and Desktops should have improved FPS, Battery life and network performance.

Formatting is a WIP due to how many optimizations there are, commands will be bolded soon. For now they are space separated with a blank line between the description of what the command does and the actual command.

Linux Optimization Commands

Table of Contents

1. System Configuration
2. Memory Management
3. CPU Optimization
4. Disk I/O Optimization
5. Network Optimization
6. File System Optimization
7. Process Management
8. Kernel Tuning
9. Database Optimization
10. Miscellaneous Optimizations

System Configuration

Disable Transparent Huge Pages (THP)

THP can cause performance issues for databases. More info

Use Tuned-ADM

Tuned-ADM is a tool for tuning system performance. Manual

Change Init Level (For VPS hosting WordPress sites only)

init 3

Instructions for changing run levels

Use Stacer

Stacer is a system optimizer and monitoring tool. More info

Disable Unnecessary Linux Services

systemctl list-unit-files --type=service
sudo systemctl disable SERVICE_NAME

Optimize Boot Parameters (GRUB only)

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash noapic noacpi nosplash irqpoll"

Tune Systemd for Performance

DefaultTimeoutStartSec=10s
DefaultTimeoutStopSec=10s

Memory Management

Enable Z-Swap

sudo perl -pi -e 's/^(GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.*)"$/$1 zswap.enabled=1 zswap.compressor=lz4 zswap.zpool=z3fold zswap.max_pool_percent=25"/' /etc/default/grub
sudo update-grub
sudo echo -e 'lz4\nlz4_compress\nz3fold' >> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

Enable MGLRU (Multi-Gen. Least Recently Used)

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/tmpfiles.d/mglru.conf
w /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled - - - - 7
w /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/min_ttl_ms - - - - 0
EOF

Unlock Memory Lock

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/security/limits.d/memlock.conf
* hard memlock 2147484
* soft memlock 2147484
EOF

Optimize Virtual Memory Settings

sysctl -w vm.dirty_background_ratio=5
sysctl -w vm.dirty_ratio=10

Use HugeTLB Pages

echo 'vm.nr_hugepages=128' >> /etc/sysctl.conf

Enable and Configure zram

apt-get install zram-config

Adjust Swappiness

sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10

CPU Optimization

Switch to Performance CPU Governor

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/cpu_performance.service
[Unit]
Description=CPU performance governor
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/cpupower frequency-set -g performance
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable cpu_performance.service

Use CPU Isolation

isolcpus=1,2

Optimize Kernel Scheduler

echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sched_autogroup_enabled

Use schedtool for Advanced CPU Scheduling

apt-get install schedtool
schedtool -R -p 20 -e myapp

Disk I/O Optimization

Change I/O Scheduler

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/64-ioschedulers.rules
ACTION=="add|change", KERNEL=="nvme[0-9]*", ATTR{queue/scheduler}="kyber"
ACTION=="add|change", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]|mmcblk[0-9]*", ATTR{queue/rotational}=="0", ATTR{queue/scheduler}="kyber"
EOF

Enable Writeback Caching

hdparm -W1 /dev/sda

Use RAM Disks for Temporary Storage

mount -t tmpfs -o size=1G tmpfs /mnt/ramdisk

Optimize Swap Settings with zswap

echo 1 > /sys/module/zswap/parameters/enabled
echo lz4 > /sys/module/zswap/parameters/compressor
echo 20 > /sys/module/zswap/parameters/max_pool_percent

Use blktrace for Block Layer Tracing

apt-get install blktrace
blktrace -d /dev/sda

Increase Read-Ahead Buffer

blockdev --setra 2048 /dev/sda

Network Optimization

Enable Jumbo Frames

ifconfig eth0 mtu 9000

or

ip link set dev eth0 mtu 9000

Enable TCP BBR

echo "net.ipv4.tcp_congestion_control=bbr" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sysctl -p

Optimize TCP Network Stack

sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time=600
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes=5
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl=60
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling=1
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_sack=1
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_fin_timeout=30
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog=2048
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets=400000
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_fastopen=3

Enable Offload Processing

ethtool -K eth0 gro on
ethtool -K eth0 gso on
ethtool -K eth0 tso on

Optimize DNS Resolution

apt-get install dnsmasq

Implement TCP MSS Clamping

iptables -t mangle -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN -j TCPMSS --clamp-mss-to-pmtu

Enable TCP Window Scaling

sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling=1

Optimize Network Buffer Sizes

sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=16777216
sysctl -w net.core.wmem_max=16777216

Implement Network Interface Teaming

apt-get install ifenslave

Enable IPv6

sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=0

Optimize TCP Reassembly Settings

sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_reordering=3

Adjust Network Queue Length

ifconfig eth0 txqueuelen 10000

File System Optimization

Use xfs_fsr for XFS File System Defragmentation

xfs_fsr /dev/sda1

Use fstrim for SSDs

fstrim -v /

Implement ZFS

apt-get install zfsutils-linux
zpool create mypool /dev/sda

Optimize File System Access Time

mount -o remount,noatime,nodiratime /

Process Management

Increase Open File Limits

echo "fs.file-max = 500000" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
ulimit -n 500000

Adjust Out-of-Memory (OOM) Killer Settings

echo '-1000' > /proc/$(pidof critical_process)/oom_score_adj

Use cgroups for Resource Management

cgcreate -g cpu,memory:mygroup
cgset -r cpu.shares=512 mygroup
cgset -r memory.limit_in_bytes=512M mygroup

Use pm2 for Node.js Process Management (VPS's using Node.js only)

npm install pm2@latest -g
pm2 start app.js

Use cpulimit to Limit CPU Usage of Processes

apt-get install cpulimit
cpulimit -e myapp -l 50

Kernel Tuning

Optimize Kernel Parameters

sysctl -w net.core.somaxconn=1024
sysctl -w net.core.netdev_max_backlog=5000
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1
sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288
sysctl -w kernel.panic=10
sysctl -w kernel.panic_on_oops=1
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rfc1337=1
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_mtu_probing=1
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_base_mss=536
sysctl -w fs.file-max=2097152
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_low_latency=1

Adjust Kernel Timer Frequency

echo 1000 > /proc/sys/kernel/timer_frequency

Enable Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM)

echo 1 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/run

Tune Kernel Semaphore Parameters

sysctl -w kernel.sem="250 32000 100 128"

Optimize Inode Cache

sysctl -w fs.inode-nr
sysctl -w fs.inode-state

Tune Kernel Preemption Model

echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/preempt

Database Optimization

Enable Asynchronous I/O (AIO) for Databases

innodb_use_native_aio = 1

Enable and Configure Query Caching (MySQL/MariaDB)

query_cache_size = 64M
query_cache_type = ON

Miscellaneous Optimizations

Use Custom Kernel

More info

Store Temporary Files in Memory

mount -t tmpfs -o size=512M tmpfs /tmp

Use jemalloc for Memory Allocation (VPS's only)

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjemalloc.so.2

Implement Squid for Caching and Proxying (VPS's only)

apt-get install squid

Use Lightweight Logging

sed -i 's/^#LogLevel=info/LogLevel=error/' /etc/systemd/journald.conf

Prevent Superfluous File Access Time Book-keeping

sudo sed -i -e '/home/s/\bdefaults\b/&,noatime/' /etc/fstab

Note: Always test these optimizations in a controlled environment before applying them to production systems. Some optimizations may not be suitable for all use cases or may require fine-tuning based on your specific hardware and workload.