GZIP turned ON

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Gzip Encoding has been turned on for the rest of the site (it used to be only on for the forums). Please let me know if you have any problems.

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

How do you exactly enable it for your own site?

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

If PHP has been compiled with zlib, add the following to the top of a PHP file:

Code:

ob_start("ob_gzhandler");

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Thanks

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Speeds things up

Team Member Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 147 Location: UK

Andrew wrote:

How does it do that though?

By compressing the output - in effect it sends a tar.gz file to your browser and your computer unzips the file and displays it.

ob_zhandler has had some problems though and only works for PHP content - a much better option is to use mod_gzip which compresses all of Apache's output

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

But unfortunately mod_gzip isn't installed on our server Sad

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

GZIP compression has been off since we moved to 34SP, as 34SP do not have the required modules for GZIP compression. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Team Member Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 147 Location: UK

Won't they install it? Slightly higher server load, but much reduced bandwidth costs (and I know which i'd prefer)...

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Well I asked them, and they said that they had what was required for it, and I told them they didn't Smile

I then proved to them that zlib is required, and they didn't reply. Will try to get them to install it, but 34SP are very reticent to install anything non standard Sad

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Just talked with Daniel (no, not me, but someone on the 34SP staff Wink

), who said that he wouldn't install zlib, as it requires recompiling PHP, but he will install mod_gzip instead. Will let you know when this has been done.

Team Member Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 147 Location: UK

Heck, I thought zlib was a standard part of any linux install.

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Apparently not... Unless Plesk disabled it on purpose Rolling Eyes

Team Member Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 147 Location: UK

Ah well... plesk != standard Linux distro

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Daniel wrote:

Just talked with Daniel (no, not me, but someone on the 34SP staff Wink

), who said that he wouldn't install zlib, as it requires recompiling PHP, but he will install mod_gzip instead. Will let you know when this has been done.

Done! Let me know if you encounter any problems Smile