For those of you who didn’t know, Apache’s mod_deflate is an Apache module that will compress output from your server before it is sent to the client. If you have newer version of Apache the mod_deflate module is probably loaded by default, but it may not be turned on.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step by step enable Gzip compression on Apache.
Enable Gzip Compression on Apache
Step 1. First, verify that the module is loaded in your httpd.conf file.
Your current version of Apache may already have enabled this module for you, but you may still want to be sure. To enable this module, add the following line (if it does not exist) in Apache configuration file.
LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so
Step 2. Configure httpd.conf file.
Open httpd.conf file using a text editor and place the following in it:
#nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf # mod_deflate configuration <IfModule mod_deflate.c> # Restrict compression to these MIME types AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css # Level of compression (Highest 9 - Lowest 1) DeflateCompressionLevel 9 # Netscape 4.x has some problems. BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html # Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip # MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine BrowserMatch \bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html </IfModule>
Step 3. Restart Apache and Verify.
## CentOS ## service httpd restart ## Ubuntu ## /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
You can use this link to verify your server gzip using one of domain configured on server.
Congratulations! You have successfully Enable Gzip Compression on Apache web server. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Apache website.