Installing mod_gzip on Linux

[billau]

. Login as root user to your server
2. Create /home/modgziptmp directory

#mkdir /home/modgziptmp
#chmod 5777 /home/modgziptmp

3. Grab mod_gzip 1.3.26a.1a source files and place them in /usr/local/src

#cd /usr/local/src
#wget http://telia.dl.sourceforge.net/sour...-1.3.26.1a.tgz

4. Extract files and change to directory

#tar xfz mod_gzip-1.3.26.1a.tgz
#cd mod_gzip-1.3.26.1a

5. Compile/install mod_gzip by typing 2 commands (note path/to/apxs maybe different on your server)

#make APXS=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs
#make install APXS=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs

6. Add the mod_gzip configuration settings after mod_gzip.c in httpd.conf

mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_can_negotiate Yes
mod_gzip_static_suffix .gz
AddEncoding gzip .gz
mod_gzip_update_static No
mod_gzip_command_version '/mod_gzip_status'
mod_gzip_temp_dir /home/modgziptmp
mod_gzip_keep_workfiles No
mod_gzip_minimum_file_size 500
mod_gzip_maximum_file_size 500000
mod_gzip_maximum_inmem_size 60000
mod_gzip_min_http 1000
mod_gzip_handle_methods GET POST
mod_gzip_item_exclude reqheader "User-agent: Mozilla/4.0[678]"
mod_gzip_item_include file .html$
mod_gzip_item_include file .shtml$
mod_gzip_item_include file .htm$
mod_gzip_item_include file .shtm$
mod_gzip_item_include file .php$
mod_gzip_item_include file .phtml$
mod_gzip_item_exclude file .js$
mod_gzip_item_exclude file .css$
mod_gzip_item_include file .pl$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/html$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/plain$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^httpd/unix-directory$
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_add_header_count Yes
mod_gzip_send_vary Yes

7. Restart apache

#/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop
#/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start

8. Check to see if mod_gzip is installed by going to http://leknor.com/code/gziped.php and enter the server url[/url]

[thechronic]

Or simply recompile apache in WHM and check the mod_gzip checkbox

Has worked perfectly for me.

[chirpy]

Installing mod_gzip on Linux

I wish you'd post the implications of your little (sometimes pointless) howto posts.

A warning for those who think - oh, I'll install that. Mod_gzip helps you reduce data transfer from your server. If you don't have a data transfer quota problem, don't install mod_gzip, especially if you have any performance issues as it will only add to the load of your server.

[K_aneda]

Any figures as to what kind of a performance hit you take from gzip'd sites?

[thechronic]

It also speeds up loading of large pages tremendously, for large HTML documents I typically get 85-92% smaller file sizes, which gives a huge difference in downloading time for modem users, and a noticeable difference for broadband users - the pages seem to appear instantly instead of taking half a second.

It does have some downsides, the load on the server goes up a bit so it's not recommended for overloaded servers.
It is also known to be incompatible with mod_ssl so if you rely on SSL it's not recommended.

[casey]

It is also known to be incompatible with mod_ssl so if you rely on SSL it's not recommended.

Yep. Found that out the hard way just last week...

[dgbaker]

Never had an issue mod_ssl and mod_gzip both have worked fine on multiple installations. Both have worked well without doing anything extra.

[chrisbuk]

Hi

I know this is a really old thread but i found it while researching installing Mod_GZIP

i followed the instruction but I have a issue when i go to step make install APXS=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs

this happens when i paste the command

root@vm1 [/usr/local/src/mod_gzip-1.3.26.1a]# make install APXS=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs
/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs -A -i mod_gzip.so
apxs:Error: Sorry, cannot determine bootstrap symbol name.
apxs:Error: Please specify one with option `-n'.
make: *** [install] Error 1

using apache 2.2 with PHP 5.2.14

[prashant_ohol]

mod_deflate has replaced Apache 1.3's mod_gzip in Apache2. so use mod_deflate

Prashant