Usually, web hosting services (VPS, shared hosting, dedicated servers, etc.) will respond to requests from users and visitors of your website from one location, no matter the users’ geographical location, being connected to only one server. Such architecture may cause delays in delivering content to users living far away from your website’s server.
ArvanCloud CDN addresses this issue with more than 40 pop sites around the world. CDN servers receive static content from your website’s server and cache it to deliver data to users from the closest geographic location.
Using ArvanCloud CDN, you can improve the efficiency and security of your website easily. It only takes a few clicks to activate the CDN for your website. This guide will walk you through installing the WordPress plugin and activating the ArvanCloud CDN for a WordPress website.
Registering Domain in ArvanCloud User Panel
Before you can start using the CDN, you first need to register your WordPress website in the ArvanCloud user panel and fill in the DNS records. If you are unfamiliar with the domain registration process in the ArvanCloud panel, refer to the ArvanCloud CDN Getting Started guide for help.
Installing ArvanCloud CDN WordPress Plugin
Once the initial domain setup is done and the cloud icon for the desired records is activated, we will head over to the WordPress admin dashboard of the website.
Next, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the “Add New” button to install the ArvanCloud WordPress plugin. Searching for the term ArvanCloud will bring up the list of plugins released by ArvanCloud.
Next, we will install and activate the “ArvanCloud CDN” plugin.
Once activated, you need to enter the API key of your user account into the plugin. To do so, go to your ArvanCloud user panel and generate a new key in the Profile/Settings/Machine User section.
As we only want to use the CDN service with this key, we will restrict access of this key to the CDN to enhance security.
Now click on Add.
Note that you cannot recover this key after closing this message, with your key information stored in hashed form.
Keep in mind that with this key, you can change the specified areas of the panel through the API.
Next, we will copy the key, paste it into the plugin, and save it. Then, by activating the plugin and connecting it to ArvanCloud’s CDN, we can customize and activate the features we are looking for.
Features and Settings of WordPress plugin
You can check the settings for the functions of the plugin in this section.
Purge Cache
Using this feature, you can clear all cached data on ArvanCloud’s edge servers so all the information gets retrieved from your server and cached again.
Using this option may slow down the website temporarily and add to the load on the main server, so using it is not recommended unless in special cases such as caching wrong or old data.
Recommended WordPress Rules
By activating this feature in the rules section of your domain pages, you will apply optimal settings to the website so that ArvanCloud CDN would be compatible with your WordPress website. You will find a detailed explanation of these settings in the “guide to the best ArvanCloud CDN service settings for WordPress.”
Always Online
Use this feature to display the cached version of your website’s content when the main server is down so that your users are affected as little as possible by the service downtime.
Developer’s Mode
If you need to see the changes immediately, this feature will pause all acceleration settings and the content cache temporarily until the developer’s mode is turned off.
Automatic Purge
Using this feature, you can immediately view content after it has been published or modified in WordPress and delete or purge the associated cache from ArvanCloud.
Acceleration
Acceleration will help you reduce and optimize your WordPress website’s CSS and JS file size as much as possible.
As ArvanCloud resides as a reverse proxy between your servers and users, it is only able to cache or optimize the content which is visible from your web server. As a result, when you use accelerator plugins like wp-rocket, it will only cache the content generated by that plugin. When using the ArvanCloud WordPress plugin, server-level caching, and acceleration will not be possible.
Preventing DDoS Attacks
You can manage the settings for DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) protection in this section. There are four modes of mitigating attacks in ArvanCloud’s DDoS Protection feature:
Basic Mode
All of the ArvanCloud servers automatically prevent DDoS attacks at the network layer. This is done with the help and combination of different methods to stop tampered and multiple packets from the same source coming in.
The Cookie Challenge
Here, in the first response from each user, ArvanCloud returns a response with a 307 status code and requests the user to use a specific cookie in the response and send it to all subsequent requests. Then, ArvanCloud verifies this cookie and grants access to the website if it is valid.
Keep in mind that Google IPs and search engines are exempted from all DDoS protection applications.
JS Challenge
In this case, when the user makes the first request, they will be presented with a JavaScript code asking them to perform an AES encryption request. As this demands the use of a CPU and JavaScript engine, bots can’t handle this challenge.
Captcha Challenge
Here, in addition to network-level protection, ArvanCloud will prevent bot attacks that target level 7 and simulate human behavior. When this happens, the user receives a security code, or captcha, and is asked to correctly identify multiple images. As the traffic to display these pages and their processing takes place outside your server, it is considered the most advanced and efficient means of preventing level 7 denial-of-service attacks.
HTTPS Settings
This section allows you to manage the settings for your domain’s SSL certificate and determine how it will be applied to the website.
Generally, we recommend that you enable all HTTPS configuration features on your domain to enhance security. Also, you can check out ArvanCloud’s HTTPS documentation for the specific details and the exact method of HTTPS settings.
Firewall Settings
Next-generation ArvanCloud Firewall delivers a flexible platform to control HTTP requests of your website or web application. Using ArvanCloud Content Distribution Network Firewall Settings, you can create rules by combining different conditions to monitor domain traffic and maintain the security of your website and web application.
Caching Settings
Use this section to set the caching level as well as the validity duration of the cached data.
For WordPress sites, our best suggestion is the caching status with the query string. What ArvanCloud suggests for the duration of the cached data is 30 days and a week for the cached data in browser.
For a better understanding of the cache settings in ArvanCloud, you can refer to the caching settings documentation.
Traffic Analysis
The reports in this section can be used to view and review the details of your website traffic and analyze users and HTTP/S requests in any particular time frame.
Status Analysis
This section will let you see the status of the domain according to the delay in the response of your web server, and also the status codes in various periods and displayed in the form of a time frame or pie chart.
At this point, we have completed all the necessary settings to activate the CDN and begin using its features. You can check the impressive effects of activating CDN on your WordPress website with the help of services like gtmetrix.com.