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How to enable gzip compression in Apache on Plesk server?

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Dinara Aspembitova
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Applicable to:

  • Plesk for Linux

Question

How to enable gzip compression in Apache?

Answer

Enabling per-domain using Plesk interface

Note: In case Smart static files processing is enabled in Domains > example.com > Apache & nginx Settings, disable it, or use the following article instead: How to enable gzip compression in nginx on a Plesk server

  1. Log into Plesk

  2. Make sure that 'deflate' and 'filter' modules ('filter' might be absent on CentOS 6) are enabled in Tools & Settings > Apache Web Server.

    Untitled.png

  3. Go to Domains > example.com > File Manager and open the .htaccess file.

  4. Add the following content to the bottom of the file:

    CONFIG_TEXT: <IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml

    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
    BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
    Header append Vary User-Agent
    </IfModule>

    Untitled.png

Enable server-wide gzip compression using SSH connection

Note: In case Smart static files processing is enabled on domain in Domains > example.com > Apache & nginx Settings, disable it, or use the following article instead: How to enable gzip compression in nginx on a Plesk server

  1. Connect to the server via SSH

    Note: if direct SSH access to the server is not possible, contact server administrator for further assistance.

  2. Make sure that module mod_deflate is enabled in apache:

    # httpd -M | grep deflate
    deflate_module (shared)

  3. Create a file deflate.conf in /etc/httpd/conf.d:

    # vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/deflate.conf

  4. Add the following into the file:

    CONFIG_TEXT: <IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
    # Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers)
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4.0[678] no-gzip
    BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
    Header append Vary User-Agent
    </IfModule>

  5. Note in case of Centos OS, if the server has Apache 2.4 (httpd-2.4), the following module should be enabled:

    # grep -ir "mod_filter.so" /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-base.conf
    LoadModule filter_module modules/mod_filter.so

    In case of Debian and Ubuntu, check that the _filter _module is enabled:

    # apachectl -M | grep filter
    filter_module (shared)

  6. Restart apache:

    # service httpd restart

Note: On Debian and Ubuntu the service is named apache2 instead of httpd, the list of all modules is called using apache2ctl utility and the path for deflate.conf file is /etc/apache2/mods-available/ instead of /etc/httpd/conf.d/

Comments

9 comments

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  • Avatar
    Mattia Gregolin

    Thank you. This was very helpful for my Amazon Ec2 instance!

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  • Avatar
    Deyvi Arellano

    Disculpa pero cuando realizo lo siguiente me deja de funcionar apache! 

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  • Avatar
    Alexandr Tumanov

    @Deyvi,

    Could you please share the information about the error? Apache version? The article was verified and no errors with apache were found.

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  • Avatar
    Gianluca (Edited )

    Please correct the row number two on the ssh code section:

    # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript

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  • Avatar
    Ivan Postnikov

    Hello @Gianluca,

    Thank you for noticing. The article was updated.

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  • Avatar
    Jan Bludau

    @Ivan:

    there should be an option in plesk to do that serverwide alone...

    per domain a "infobox" where you can grab the needed code

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  • Avatar
    Dinara Aspembitova (Edited )

    Hello @Jan Bludau,

     

    >there should be an option in plesk to do that serverwide alone...

    Take part in our product improvement and vote for this feature on Plesk UserVoice. The top-ranked suggestions are likely to be included in the next versions of Plesk.

    As for "infobox" could you please share the details and clarify the usecase?

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  • Avatar
    Marco Marsala

    On my server I didn't do such configuration, I don't have such files, but all replies are still compressed (HTTP Response Header contains Content-Encoding: gzip).

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  • Avatar
    Alisa Kasyanova

    @Marco Marsala
    Have you checked this article as well: https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/213380049 ? If sites are using WordPress, there could be plugins that enable gzip compression.

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