How to enable gzip compression in Apache on Plesk server?

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.

   

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

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

   <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>

   

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:

   <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…