Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 5:32 pm

I have enabled the zLIB compression for PHP on our server. Hopefully this will increase the speed of the site. Let me know if it causes any problems for anyone.

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:09 pm

nevermind. Putting the line:

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

I don't know how you go about enabling it, but it does work really well when it's working... my old work had their ecommerce site with zlib and it was superquick to load the pages.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

I have never experimented with this but take a look at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_deflate.html

Magician Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 459 Location: USA

need to be done with apache as well?

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 3:59 am

Hmm, mod_deflate looks like something useful, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about Apache to re-build it, and it's not one of the currently installed mods. You'd think that if something like this was really useful it would be included the the default build?

Anyway, still looking at options. I still don't know why this open for PHP doesn't work itself. Everyone seems to claim that it does, but I tried a test site that tests for compression usage and it claimed the pages weren't being compressed. This is a lot more aggravating than I expected.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

ok I have looked at the issue and found a solution. The issue is that a standard installation of Apache doesn't let you overrride anything at all.

You need to add a "AllowOverride options" to some well suited directory tag. You probably have a "AllowOverride none" at the moment. You can read about this directive at: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/core.html#allowoverride

Edit: That is you need to edit your httpd.conf file and then restart the Apache software. Else you won't be allowed to use the .htaccess file.

Edit2: A more secure way, I believe, to enable php-compression is to add this to httpd.conf:
php_flag zlib.output_compression On

I added that at the very botttom and now I get every .php file sent as compressed, and can worry less about myself( Mr. Green

) uploading insecure .htaccess files to do a takeover of my own, local, test-server :).

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 3:29 pm

I actually already have the AllowOverride set to allow .htaccess files. I use them to redirect some old script links to new locations on the site. So that's not it, but I'll try adding the line directly to the httpd.conf file and see if that helps.

Is it possible that there is something missing or disabled in my PHP built itself? I'll run a phpinfo() command and see if I find anything obvious that is turned off.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

It would be silly if you had disabled zlib somehow in php when you built it :).

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 4:32 am

Well, sure enough, according to phpinfo() the zlib option wasn't used when PHP was built. I spent all of my "fun" time tonight trying to locate where PHP is on our server. Finally found the sources and rebuilt it with the --with-zlib option. I then did a "make" and a "make install" and restarted the Apache server. But it doesn't seem to have done anything. phpinfo() is still showing the previous build date. Somehow the "make install" didn't put the files in the needed location on this server.

I've contacted WolfPaw about this to see if they can help fix it. They have the directory structure on this server customized and non-standard to prevent hacking, and it's driving me a bit crazy trying to figure out where to put stuff.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 4:44 pm

Turns out PHP is linked statically with Apache for speed (a good thing). So, to get the changes in PHP working, we have to rebuild Apache. Dale at Wolfpaw has offered to help with this, and he'll also be updating PHP at the same time. So hopefully by tonight we'll have PHP and Apache all rebuilt and will have the compression enabled to speed up the site.

It's not a big deal for the forums, but the new shopping cart system has longer PHP pages and the compression should really help with that.

Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:18 pm

We now have the zLIB compression working! Let me know if it causes any trouble for anyone.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

The change is causing me slight touble. It no longer remembers my login. I find it personally irritating to have to login everytime, it is just one of those things I think should be automatic. Prior to the change my login cookie expired every few months. Now I have to renter the data every time now matter how I try to access the forums.

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 11:51 pm

Hmm, that's wierd, I'm not seeing that here. Anyone else having trouble with this? I can't think of why zlib compression would have any effect on cookies or login sessions.

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 12:22 am

Btw, what browser are you using? I have tried everything I can think of and I can't reproduce any problem with either Internet Explorer nor with Firefox. I've logged in to the forums (checking the save login info box) and then closed the browser and restarted it, and it keeps me logged in with no problem.

I can definitely understand being irritated, but that wasn't the intent. If I say a problem as serious as that I'd definitely fix it. I'm just not sure why it's happening to you and not failing on any of my computers here. Very wierd.

I also did a bit of google searching regarding zlib and sessions or cookies and couldn't find any useful topics, so it doesn't look like a normal issue. zLib compression is pretty common these days, so I'd think that someone would have mentioned a big problem like this.

Are you sure you didn't somehow log off or something like that?

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:56 am

Working fine for me still (Opera v8)

Lady C.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

I haven't had to log back in, even when using different PC's eg home/work/laptop all auto-login *shrug*.

Enchanter Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 698

I've had this irritation since right after the header was modified the last time. I've tried everything I can think of to get it working auto again, but haven't been successfull. I thought everyone had to re-enter their login and pw each time. Sad

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

mr_kent can you try wiping all cookies from zuggsoft.com, emobius.com and then try login and see if it works?

Enchanter Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 698

HEEEYAHHH!!! Thanks Rorso! Very Happy

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

Wiping out the cookies helped some, but I am still not getting joy. I am sure it is just something on my end that happened right at the same time. No biggie. Probably just have to give Windows a reboot.

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 12:41 pm

I remember having the cookie problem a while back. When the forums.zuggsoft.com was pointing to emobius.com instead of zuggsoft.com it caused problems. I had to delete all my zuggsoft.com and emobius.com and forums.zuggsoft.com cookies.

After deleting the cookies, then try logging in with the save login box checked and then look at your cookies again to see what got created. If nothing new got created, then either something is still cached (rebooting is a good idea), or something is blocking the cookie. If the cookie is getting created but it's still not logging you in, then it's something else.