mod-gzip - Does Jaguar Have it?

[akreider2]

Is Jaguar not using mod-gzip for apache?

From what i've read it can generally compress html by 75% and most (99% or so) browsers support it.

The only downside is that compressing is a very small burden on the CPU - which might explain why they wouldn't use it.

At least I'd like to gzip my homepage - which I'm converting from dynamic to static (or to be static 95% of the time).

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If I'm generating my files in php is there a second (php-only) way to do compression with gzip, without having mod-gzip enabled?
(I think there is.)

Aaron

[Vin DSL]

Um...

Every server I've been on, at JagPC, has GZ -- although I use BZ2 most of the time, which is GZ on crack!

Are you sure it's not installed on your machine?

[akreider2]

What do I need to activiate it? I thought it would be running automatically, but it isn't.

Do I need to add a header field to my html that says:
"Content-Encoding: gzip"

[Vin DSL]

Oops! Sorry!

I was thinking about gzip file compression.

zlib and gzip and often interchangeable in discussions.

So, you want to implement HTTP compression, right?

zlib is available...

[akreider2]

In php you can add the following first line to your code:
ob_start("ob_gzhandler");

Note it has to be the first executable statement in your php code.

I'm still not sure how to do it with html.

[Gwaihir]

mod_gzip isn't the exact same thing as compressing from inside php. Compression at the Apache level should be faster (less machine load for same result), although the differences will in most cases probably be small.

You can see whether it's installed on your server by looking at a phpinfo() output under Apache, Loaded Modules. To work reliably it must not only be there, but it must be the last module loaded. (This manual page explains why that position matters.)

I've asked support to install it for me some years ago (on the server I was on then), which they were quick to do. However, it didn't stay last in the list for long, as apparently the (other) support staff working on the machine wasn't aware of that need. So, if you're going to rely on mod_gzip compression, you'll want to keep an eye on that.

Once the module is loaded, you can activate and configure it for your site via directives in your .htaccess. You can for example tell it to start a chache of already compressed files, skip files that are too tiny to bother with and only compress file types on which it is usefull. It for example makes a huge difference on large html files, but is not worth the trouble at all on a gif file, as that's already a highly compressed format.

I was (and still am) using the compression mainly to bring a few large pages down to a size acceptable for modem users. It's PHP output that changes often and sees relatively few page views each month, so I settled for the PHP-side compression akreider2 mentioned.

[Vin DSL]

In php you can add the following first line to your code:
ob_start("ob_gzhandler");

Note it has to be the first executable statement in your php code.

I'm still not sure how to do it with html.

Well, this is how I start it...

if (strstr($HTTP_SERVER_VARS['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip')){
        if (extension_loaded('zlib')){
            $do_gzip_compress = TRUE;
            ob_start();
            ob_implicit_flush(0);
            }

And, this is how I stop it...

$contents = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
echo replace_for_mod_rewrite($contents);
die();

Does it work? http://www.pipeboost.com/GetReport.a...ww.lenon .com

[Vin DSL]

OH, DUH!!!

I was just fiddling around with some GZIP checkers -- testing my site -- and one of them linked to this:

Source: http://www.whatsmyip.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43

How to verify its working:
gzip works so seamlessly, no doubt you'll be wondering, "is it working?" Here's the easiest way to check, and you can use it on any web page. Load the page in FireFox. Now in the 'Tools' menu, choose 'Page Info'. Now in the window, you will see a size value. That is the actual size of the html of the page as it was transmitted over the internet.

LoL! Learn something new every day!

I use FX's 'View Page Info' all the time, and never noticed that before...

My home page, compressed, is only about twice the size of this page!

[Gwaihir]

Gzip checkers? Hmm.. that sounds way over the top! Then comparing the size of the page saved-to-disk with the size that page info gives is indeed a lot simpler.

However, taking a peak at the HTTP headers of the page you get in is even simpler than that. [I do presume pretty much any decent developer has the plug-ins for that installed in his browser, right?] If it's gzipped, there's a header:

Content-Encoding: gzip

[Vin DSL]

Gzip checkers? Hmm.. that sounds way over the top!

Yeah, long story (short version)...

I'm one of the first ppl that got gzip compression working with PHP-Nuke -- if not The First. I showed others how to do it, and they were always amazed by the instant difference in speed, et cetera; however, there was always some hot-shot that claimed it had been tried many times, before I came along, and it was impossible.

So, I would offer the results of various gzip checkers as proof. Then, these detractors would claim that the gzip checkers lied -- that the gzip checkers were just seeing the header and 'guesstimating' the compressed size, yada, yada, yada.

Anyway, that was a few years ago, so I was curious to see how these checkers looked nowadays...