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mod_gzip comments
Excellent stuff Alex! I for one have noticed a significant increase in "speed" on these forums!

vBulletin have been using the gzip method on their forums for a while now, and for a time I was getting "undefined errors" when trying to view their pages, it was apparantly something to do with the Firewall at work (which has since been upgraded) so we'll see how things go.

Strangely it only happened in IE, I could always substitue with NS (ugh!) if I was desperate Wink

Cheers,

- Mark

Astro-Boy!!
http://www.zip.com.au/~astroboy/
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
In Reply To:
Strangely it only happened in IE, I could always substitue with NS (ugh!) if I was desperate
Let's hope you don't have to do that here. Wouldn't want to force that on someone. =)

Just to double check, you aren't getting those errors here though are you?

Cheers,

Alex

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Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hi,

It is pretty amazing, if it works out well, I'd recommend this to others. Over the past hour on things we have compressed (currently only html pages and cgi output), we've seen a savings of 80%! So instead of sending out 18 megs worth of data, only 3 megs have been sent. Great for our bandwidth and users on slow connections. =)

For those interested, it's a free download + install:

http://www.remotecommunications.com/apache/mod_gzip/

Very cool stuff! I love seeing things like:

GET /perl/forum/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=L2Cust&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5 HTTP/1.1" 200 6428 mod_gzip: OK In:88966 Out:6428:93pct.

which basically says an 88kb page got compressed to a 6k download. =)

Cheers,

Alex

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Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hey Alex,

I haven't had any problems yet, nor have I had any with the vB forum for a while now. I've just been over there trying to dig up the discussion thread they had on the problem but I can't seem to find it.

There's a fairly in-depth discussion on the subject here though:
http://lists.over.net/...-January/000709.html

The problem was actually that IE was recieving the compressed page, but failing to uncompress them, which often resulted in "unkown errors" and some bizzare formatting Wink

I'm fairly confident I won't have any issues though. Everythings been running smoothly since they updated our firewall (except we can't browse sites on sub-domains for some reason Crazy)

Cheers, Cool

- Mark

Astro-Boy!!
http://www.zip.com.au/~astroboy/
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
It's flying down here!

Gotta get it...

R.


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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hi Alex,

You don't know of any browser restrictions that come into it using mod_gzip do you? Eg, do all older versions of browsers support it or it not a browser dependent thing?

I could just look on their site I guess... :)

Cheers,
Regan.


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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Good to see mod_gzip at work! I've been looking at playing around with it and haven't gotten to it yet.

I'd like to evaluate it and recommend it at work...could help our site big time.

--mark

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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hi,

Basically all browsers that support HTTP/1.1 are meant to support it. It's great because it bases it off whether the browser sends in the request header whether it can handle gzip, and if it can't (i.e. you are using a perl script or something), then it just sends the page normally.

We've tried it with all the browsers we have and it works perfectly.

Only thing I read is Netscape can't handle .js files that are included if they are gzipped. So you can't gzip .js files (we excluded that and .css just in case).

Cheers,

Alex

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Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Can't you just add some code to the CGI to check if it accepts the compression, and only if it does, compress it to guarantee that it works for everyone?

Michael Bray
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Wow.

I have just installed it on my server.

mod_gzip: OK In:31735 Out:3847:88pct.

This should be compulsory.

R.


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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Guess I'll make my way over there right now Smile

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installs:http://wiredon.net/gt/


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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
This excellent apache module has reduced my server bandwidth usage to over 68% since I fist installed it 2 months ago.

Highly recommended.



________________________
Eraser
Insight Eye
http://www.insighteye.com
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
In Reply To:
Can't you just add some code to the CGI to check if it accepts the compression, and only if it does, compress it to guarantee that it works for everyone?
It's all done on the server level, and mod_gzip has all the browser checks neccessary so you or your cgi don't need to worry about it. =)

Cheers,

Alex

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Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hi Alex,

Could I ask why you didn't use mod_gzip previously?

...did you just never get around to installing it or did you feel it wasn't needed or....?

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installs:http://wiredon.net/gt/


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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hi,

Just never got around to it, always thought it was a good idea, but didn't have the chance to try it out.

Cheers,

Alex

--
Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
I fancy installing it .... is it difficult?

All the best
Shaun

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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
If you can use the pre-compiled version then just put mod_gzip.so in Apache's modules directory and add the LoadModule line into httpd.conf then restart apache.

If you get an error you will need to recompile the source with apxs (which I had to do...ugh)

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installs:http://wiredon.net/gt/


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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hey!

I installed it and it's very easy. However, I'm not getting any compression but the mod is loaded and enabled in the httpd.conf:

Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_perl/1.24 PHP/4.0.3pl1 FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a

Did anyone run onto this problem too?

BTW, I'm using this script to check:
http://leknor.com/code/gziped.php

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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hmmm my server software says:

Apache/1.3.12 mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a mod_ssl/2.6.4 OpenSSL/0.9.5a PHP/4.0.3pl1 mod_auth_pam/1.0a FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_perl/1.24

....but that test script above says mod_gzip isn't installed even though it is loaded into apache.

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installs:http://wiredon.net/gt/


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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hi,

Best thing to do is turn on logging! Add:

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%V %r\" %>s %b mod_gzip: %{mod_gzip_result}n In:%{mod_gzip_input_size}n Out:%{mod_gzip_output_size}n:%{mod_gzip_compression_ratio}npct." common_with_mod_gzip_info2

CustomLog logs/mod_gzip_log common_with_mod_gzip_info2

and then restart the server and tail the logs. You will see how much it is compressing, or why it doesn't compress results.

Cheers,

Alex

--
Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Hi,

I'm getting no compression and I don't know why :(
I set the min_limit to 0, have enabled compresion on *.htm, set mod_gzip to yes... everything I think :(

GET /tinas.htm HTTP/1.0" 200 23615 mod_gzip: - In:- Out:-:-pct.
GET /enlaces.htm HTTP/1.1" 200 10411 mod_gzip: - In:- Out:-:-pct.
GET /listadeprecios.htm HTTP/1.1" 200 30327 mod_gzip: - In:- Out:-:-pct.



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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
Wow ... just installed it and it doesn't half make pages fly, although I don't know whether I'm more chuffed because it's fast - or because I managed to install it myself ... lol ... Smile

So far I've added the standard .htm* and mime=text options, but would these two lines compress cgi output:

mod_gzip_item_include file \.cgi$
mod_gzip_item_include file \.pl$

... and are there any drawbacks or problems with using it on scripts?

Also, can it compress .gif's as well?

All the best
Shaun

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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
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... and are there any drawbacks or problems with using it on scripts?
One concern is for scripts that take a long time (i.e. nph-build in Links), is that you don't see the output as it goes, as it has to compress it first.

Cheers,

Alex

--
Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
I've had mod_gzip installed for a short while, and it's been working okay, but when I went to check my logstats (analog) I had no report.

For the two domains I maintain on my server both showed only three lines for last week's stats:

Successful requests: 0
Corrupt logfile lines: xxxx
Unwanted logfile entries: xxxx

Is this something to do with the In-Out compression stats that mod_gzip adds to the log lines?

Should I remove them now I know mod_gzip is working okay? (I suspect I should have done that a week ago Smile)

Thanks - all the best
Shaun

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Re: mod_gzip comments In reply to
If you want to also include mod_gzips information in your normal log file, just tag the directives on the end of your usual log format.

Otherwise, no, logging isn't really necessary.

Cheers,
R.


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