The mod_deflate module allows the Apache2 web service to compress files and deliver them to clients (browsers) that can handle them. With mod_deflate you can compress HTML, text or XML files by up to 70% of their original sizes. Thus, saving you server traffic and speeding up page loads.
Instructions
- Make sure that
mod_deflateis enabled on your server. Your server should have it enabled by default. If the following command returns a line with a "#" at the beginning you will have to remove(uncomment) the "#" character using vi or the perl command below:grep 'mod_deflate' /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.confIf the result was LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so, you can continue. If the result was #LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so, please run the following command:
perl -pi -e 's/# LoadModule mod_deflate/LoadModule mod_deflate/g' /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf - Now that we have verified that
mod_deflateis in fact being loaded by Apache, we must configure the module. First, backup your existing conf file in case you need to revert back:cp /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.bak - Using vi, we will edit our Apache conf file and add the following lines at the very bottom of the file, making sure they are separated from any other configurations:
vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf# # Deflate output configuration # AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/javascript application/x-javascript application/xml application/xhtml+xml application/rss+xml
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip - Save your file. Now, we need to check that Apache likes our changes using the apachectl command:
/usr/sbin/apachectl -t - You should see a Syntax OK message. If not, please check your file to make sure you modified the file correctly. Next, we need to restart apache using the same apachectl command:
/usr/sbin/apachectl graceful
You have now enabled mod_deflate on your server! You can see whether the changes are in effect using the following tool at http://whatsmyip.org/mod_gzip_test/.
