I finally got around to installing the mod_gzip Apache module on the server which hosts my site, in an attempt to reduce my bandwidth usage and also hopefully speed up the site a little bit. Unfortunately, the speed increase probably won’t be noticeable until I get a faster computer in place, something I’m hoping to do by the end of the summer.
Compiling and installing the module for OS X Server merely requires making slight modifications to the project’s Makefile, compiling it as a shared library, enabling the module in Server Admin (where it automatically appears after installation, nice) and setting up the various configuration parameters in the site’s config file. A quick sudo apachectl graceful later, it’s up and running and dropping my outgoing file sizes by upwards of 70%, according to tests run from both PipeBoost and WebSiteOptimization.com. Neat!
Sadly, Server Admin is not smart enough to add the mod_gzip log file I set up to its display of log files in the Web pane; it only seems to know about the access and error logs.
Now I just need to see if I can trick awstats into taking all this into account and logging it somehow. That’ll be the next project. (And before anybody says anything, I’m not running it as a CGI.)
For reference, here are the config directives I’ve put in place for mod_gzip. Results may vary, of course.
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