How to enable mod_deflate on Apache 2.4?

Compressing data like html, js, css before transmitting them to the visitors can speed up your sites and save you bandwidth. Recently I have updated Apache on one server from version 2.2 to 2.4 but my mod_deflate rules won’t work any more (because of changes in the new version of Apache).

Here are my old mod_deflate rules I used on Apache 2.2:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
SetEnvIfNoCase ^(Accept-EncodXng|X-cept-Encoding|X{15}|~{15}|-{15})$ ^((gzip|deflate)\s*,?\s*)+|[X~-]{4,13}$ HAVE_Accept-Encoding
RequestHeader append Accept-Encoding "gzip,deflate" env=HAVE_Accept-Encoding
</IfModule>
</IfModule>

<IfModule filter_module>
FilterDeclare COMPRESS
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/html
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/css
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/plain
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/xml
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/x-component
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/javascript
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/json
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/xml
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/xhtml+xml
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/rss+xml
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/atom+xml
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/vnd.ms-fontobject
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $image/svg+xml
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/x-font-ttf
FilterProvider COMPRESS DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $font/opentype
FilterChain COMPRESS
FilterProtocol COMPRESS DEFLATE change=yes;byteranges=no
</IfModule>

<IfModule !mod_filter.c>
# Legacy versions of Apache
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/css application/json
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml application/xml text/x-component
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml application/rss+xml application/atom+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml application/vnd.ms-fontobject application/x-font-ttf font/opentype
</IfModule>
</IfModule>

And here’s my new Apache 2.4 code that enables mod_deflate compression:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c> 
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE 
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpg|png|ico|zip|gz|mp4|flv)$ no-gzip 
</IfModule>

Nice and easy! You can add other extensions you do not want to compress to the list above and that should be it!

cPanel/WHM users should login to WHM then go to Service Configuration -> Apache Configuration -> Include Editor then locate Pre VirtualHost Include on the page and select All Versions from the list (or current version of the Apache in my case 2.4.10).

apache-2.4-mod-deflate1

Then simply copy paste the code above into the box, save and restart the Apache service.

apache-2.4-mod-deflate2

Note: The process is same for Apache 2.2 just use the appropriate code from above.

MP4 streaming using Apache + WHM/cPanel

Streaming MP4 files with Apache + h264_streaming has never been easier. Setup your web server to stream MP4 files using Apache in just 3 minutes.

cd /usr/local/src
wget http://h264.code-shop.com/download/apache_mod_h264_streaming-2.2.7.tar.gz
cd mod_h264_streaming-2.2.7
./configure --with-apxs='which apxs'
make && make install

Non WHM/cPanel users
Should now add those two lines into httpd.conf:

LoadModule h264_streaming_module /usr/local/apache/modules/mod_h264_streaming.so
AddHandler h264-streaming.extensions .mp4

and simply restart Apache using:

service httpd restart

WHM/cPanel users
Should use Include Editor since any changes made to httpd.conf will be lost in case of rebuilding apache.
So login to WHM and go to Apache Configuration -> Include Editor -> Pre Main Include -> All Versions and in the box that appears copy/paste following two lines and after saving that confirm Apache restart.

LoadModule flvx_module modules/mod_flvx.so
AddHandler flv-stream .flv

Here are a few pictures for newbies so they can find their way trough more easily:

1. Apache Configuration
2. Include Editor
apache include editor whm cpanel

3. Locate PreMain Include – select All Versions
4. Copy/paste those two lines and press Update (then confirm Apache reload)
h264-streaming-module

That’s it!

FLV Streaming using Apache
To learn how to setup FLV streaming using Apache click here