[Qgis-developer] Cloudflare for qgis.org sites

[Larry Shaffer]

Hi,

The recent downtime of qgis.org sites reminds me of several corporate
websites I've worked with that, due to design requirements, needed to
remain with older server software and code base. The older sites could
not handle the bot traffic, and needed extra up-front security and a
cdn system to remain viable as their traffic grew.

I've been involved with Cloudflare.com shortly after its inception
[0], and I can definitely recommend using its services as a web-based
reverse proxy in front of sites that can use the advantages it offers:
off-site caching, threat blocking with API (great for blocking DoS
attacks), auto-insertion of Google Analytics, worldwide content
distribution netowrk, site offline notices, inexpensive SSL etc. All
of this without any changes to the sites, and only small changes to
DNS records and server configs.

The free plan with them will do a lot to start, though the Pro plan
offers the SSL and other nice features [1]. They are also pretty good
to work with, and may be able to extend a price break for the project,
in return for sponsor status and recognition.

Basically, using Cloudflare reduced the server load on my recent VPS
instance by ~30%, before tweaking cache headers, etc. (cloudfare ->
nginx rev proxy -> apache/php )

Regards (and no, I'm not affiliated with them),

Larry

[0] https://www.cloudflare.com
[1] https://www.cloudflare.com/plans