Web page compression

[lloyd_borrett]

G'day,

Can those of us on shared hosting with JaguarPC turn on web page compression at the server level?

If so, how?

My main personal web site has mostly static pages built with MS FrontPage. It also has phpBB forums, and I've been able to turn on web page compression for the forum pages.

However, my FrontPage generated static pages, plus the web pages generated by my other php based applications (e.g. Advanced Guestbook), are still delivered up as uncompressed web pages.

Most of my other web sites are now running under the Etomite CMS, which doesn't seem to have a web page compression option.

Being able to turn on server wide web page compression should save some bandwidth.

Best Regards, Lloyd.

[Gwaihir]

A) Use phpinfo to check if mod_zip is installed on your server. If not, have support install it.

B) Use a .htaccess setting to switch mod_zip on for all your pages.

[lloyd_borrett]

As best I can tell from a phpinfo check, there is no mod_zip. There are references to "gzip" though.

And if mod_zip was installed, what would the .htaccess setting be?

Regards, Lloyd.

[Gwaihir]

A right; it's called mod_gzip. It should be under the apache heading, listed among (or at the end of, I think) the loaded modules. I'm on Orion and that did not have it installed right now. (Sorry about the mix up; I've been handling only Apache 2 stuff lately and there it's a different beast with a different name yet again.)

Don't have the exact rules handy. I googled a bit for you, but most articles cover how to switch it on server wide. Should be a small step to adept those directives from there to directory level through .htaccess though.

[Spathiphyllum]

Search on your server through jailshell:

usr/sbin/httpd -l

The "list" command should summarize all modules the server daemon has loaded. If mod_gzip isn't listed, you are out of luck unless you can coax support to add it. I don't know if they will enable globally, but they might enable it locally. I suspect they don't have it by default because it can introduce new problems to some browsing agents and would make sites less accessible.

If you do see it listed, then you may usually configure it via .htaccess directives as noted by Gwaihir though configuring at the server/virtual server level is more typical.

[Gwaihir]

I don't know if they will enable globally, but they might enable it locally. I suspect they don't have it by default because it can introduce new problems to some browsing agents and would make sites less accessible.

If you do see it listed, then you may usually configure it via .htaccess directives as noted by Gwaihir though configuring at the server/virtual server level is more typical.

I'm sure it would both add unnecessary server load and piss off a good couple of clients if they switched it on globally.

I don't know if they'll configure it for your at account (i.e. virtual server) level. That might likely be the kind of customized setup that would conflict with their bulk managing the servers through WHM/CPanel. I'd suggest you ask anyway, as it would sure be simplest for you.

[Spathiphyllum]

I'm sure it would both add unnecessary server load and piss off a good couple of clients if they switched it on globally. ...

I've read conflicting reports on the actual load imposed during compression; but common sense indicates that given enough accounts on a particular server, the accumulated load cannot remain trivial. I imagine some would indeed get ticked.

I've considered trying to "optimize" with gzipping, but I figure the net gain for me is so trivial that the drawbacks would trump the benefit. Binaries are already compressed and that is what usually eats up all the bandwidth. An HTML file that got reduced from 20K to 10K used to be a great savings and time accelerator. That is becoming less so now with the ever expanding resource availability of cheap web hosting and fat pipes. Besides, I'd rather not limit the visitors I have with self-imposed obstacles. Gzipping dynamically creates unwanted support requests from visitors who don't understand why their dated browsers choke... not to mention the ones who won't complain and disappear completely never to browse again.

There's enough grief in website management already. I guess I'd just as soon not make things more difficult than I already have.