enable gzip / compression on an Amazon AMI EC2 instance via .htaccess

gistfile1.txt

# Mixings from:
# https://www.clayharmon.com/words/posts/enabling-gzip-compression-on-ec2
# http://www.samaxes.com/2008/04/htaccess-gzip-and-cache-your-site-for-faster-loading-and-bandwidth-saving/
# http://www.tonmoygoswami.com/2013/05/how-to-enable-gzip-on-amazon-elastic.html

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# | Compression                                                                |
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>

    # Force compression for mangled headers.
    # http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/12/pushing-beyond-gzipping
    <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>

    # Compress all output labeled with one of the following MIME-types
    # (for Apache versions below 2.3.7, you don't need to enable `mod_filter`
    #  and can remove the `<IfModule mod_filter.c>` and `</IfModule>` lines
    #  as `AddOutputFilterByType` is still in the core directives).
    <IfModule mod_filter.c>
        AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/atom+xml \
                                      application/javascript \
                                      application/json \
                                      application/ld+json \
                                      application/rss+xml \
                                      application/vnd.ms-fontobject \
                                      application/x-font-ttf \
                                      application/x-web-app-manifest+json \
                                      application/xhtml+xml \
                                      application/xml \
                                      font/opentype \
                                      image/svg+xml \
                                      image/x-icon \
                                      text/css \
                                      text/html \
                                      text/plain \
                                      text/x-component \
                                      text/xml
    </IfModule>

</IfModule>
<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
  mod_gzip_on Yes
  mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
  mod_gzip_item_include file \.(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
  mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
  mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
  mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/javascript.*
  mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
  mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
  mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>
<ifModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresActive On
  ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 1 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 2592000 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 2592000 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 2592000 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 604800 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 216000 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 216000 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 216000 seconds"
</ifModule>
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
  <filesMatch "\\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|swf)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000, public"
  </filesMatch>
  <filesMatch "\\.(css)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800, public"
  </filesMatch>
  <filesMatch "\\.(js)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=216000, private"
  </filesMatch>
  <filesMatch "\\.(xml|txt)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=216000, public, must-revalidate"
  </filesMatch>
  <filesMatch "\\.(html|htm|php)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=1, private, must-revalidate"
  </filesMatch>
</ifModule>
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
  Header unset ETag
</ifModule>
FileETag None
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
  Header unset Last-Modified
</ifModule>

FAQ's
Should the .htaccess file be located in the root of the website ?
Does ec2 come pre configured to accept GZIP ? - I don't think so "mod_deflate" is not seen in the http.conf file
Do we need to restart the instance to take the .htaccess changes into effect ?

Thanks for the GIST.

Hey @landed1 -

Glad this helped and sorry this took so long to reply, maybe it can help someone else next time:

1. You can have multiple .htaccess files in your project - 1 per folder - I would recommend the main one being on the root.
2. I do believe that the CentOS AMI has mod_deflate installed by default, but I have moved away from the AMIs to using Ubuntu with Laravel Forge's default configuration so I cannot confirm at this time.
3. You should not need to restart the instance for .htaccess to take effect.

Tks!
On my case, I needed to add the line
text/javascript \
Otherwise javascript was not being compressed.

Thanks, you saved me!