gzip rocks!

[SkuZZy]

I turned the gzip thing on and set it to 1..... my bandwidth has gone down to less than half of what it was before! Freaken awesome. I'm curious, what are the advantages/disadvantages of setting it higher? What would happen if I set it to 10?

SkuZZy

[eva2000]

1 is optimal any higher just increases cpu load and slows the server

gzip should be able to reduce bandwidth by 20 - 90% on pages depending amount of text versus images

[Freddie Bingham]

Please be mature and watch the titles of your threads.

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by freddie
Please be mature and watch the titles of your threads.

rotflmao. Sorry I didn't know these forums were rated G. Too damn funny.

[ccd1]

Just how does gzip work though? It sends a compressed file, I guess, but how does the recepient uncompress it?

Also, how do I enable this?

[Erwin]

Originally posted by baragon0
Just how does gzip work though? It sends a compressed file, I guess, but how does the recepient uncompress it?

Also, how do I enable this?

You need to have gzip or zlib installed on your server. Then enable it for vB in your Admin CP.

To see if gzip is running for your forums, use this URL:
http://leknor.com/code/gziped.php

Enter your forum URL in the input field. It will let you know if gzip is installed and if it's working.

As to how it works... I assume it just works as you say. :)

[Scott MacVicar]

Most browsers accept gzip'd content, and they send this in the header telling the server that they can accept it. The server then sends a header saying its going to be gzip'd content and then the browser ungzips the content :D

[CeleronXT]

Level 1 GZip is probably the best. It doesn't use too much proc. power and it still opens quickly. Upping it to level 9 adds more to the proc. usage but really doesn't help all that much generally. O_o

[Pilot]

Turning it on at all caused my server to overload.

I have suggested some sort of selective enablement or CPU load sensitive enablement but have no idea if VB3 will have this or not.

[drewc]

Dare I ask what the process is for installing and configuring ZLIB library? I ran the test at Leknor and obviously gzip was not running. Anyone know where a thread lives that discusses this?

[Steve Machol]

Originally posted by drewc
Dare I ask what the process is for installing and configuring ZLIB library? I ran the test at Leknor and obviously gzip was not running. Anyone know where a thread lives that discusses this? You need to recompile PHP with the '--with-zlib' option. I haven't recompiled PHP myself but if this is a dedicated server and you want to give it a try, check for instructions at http://www.php.net. If you are on a shared server then you'll need to ask your host to recompile PHP with this option.

[eva2000]

most servers have zlib already installed so you can recompile PHP with --with-zlib however some servers need zlib installed before you can compile it into PHP - this guide is pretty old but may work http://i4net.tv/marticle/get.php?action=getarticle&articleid=18

[drewc]

Thanks Steve and eva2000. I'm actually running VB on a Win2K server myself, so might leave well-enough alone unless I start running into performance problems. My connection is pretty slow to begin with since I've only got 128kbps upload.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by drewc
Thanks Steve and eva2000. I'm actually running VB on a Win2K server myself, so might leave well-enough alone unless I start running into performance problems. My connection is pretty slow to begin with since I've only got 128kbps upload. you can get your host to do this... you'd save on bandwidth costs which in the long run covers the fees you pay for the host to install zlib and configure php

[drewc]

I am the host :D , shhhhhh don't tell. I agree with you however, the BW savings would be a great benefit. My cable modem has great download, but like I said the upload, which is what my users are interested in, is slow... I'll go see what it would take to get PHP compiled with ZLIB. Thanks again...

[eva2000]

Originally posted by drewc
I am the host :D , shhhhhh don't tell. I agree with you however, the BW savings would be a great benefit. My cable modem has great download, but like I said the upload, which is what my users are interested in, is slow... I'll go see what it would take to get PHP compiled with ZLIB. Thanks again... hmmm gzip wouldn't help much with upload speed.... gzip compresses and reduced page size for downloading for visitors

[drewc]

Sorry eva, I think I am typing in hieroglyphics. What I should say is that I am running the PHP And MySQL server behind my cable connection. In other words I am hosting my own VB on my personal server. Cable connections, at least mine, offer up to 1.5mb download and 128kbps upload speeds. Since I am hosting the VB forum behind my cable modem, my users are downloading pages at 128kbps. This is why compressing the files should be helpful to my users. So far the beauty of VB is it is mainly text based, due to the limited use of graphics. No one has complained yet, but it's just a matter of time before we start running into bandwidth issues.

Hope this explains better....Cheers.

God lord man, don't you sleep? ;)

[eva2000]

oh in that case i'd upgrade to 256k or higher upload speeds ;) or limit apache maxclients to not allow so many simultaneous users

[drewc]

Well, good point, but it comes at a price $$$.. I pay $45.00, and although they say I shouldn't be able to use a static IP, I can. So as long as I keep the traffic down, they shouldn't notice. Hopefully...<fingers crossed> FYI -- I'm running IIS, which I believe has a similar max-client option.

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[ccd1]

Originally posted by eva2000
hmmm gzip wouldn't help much with upload speed.... gzip compresses and reduced page size for downloading for visitors

So wouldn't gzip compress the file and then send the compressed file for the client to download a smaller file? This means less traffic through upload, doesn't it?

[drewc]

That is what I was thinking :)

I haven't looked into it anymore or even know if this is an option with PHP on Windows, but in theory this is exactly what I need to reduce the upload bandwidth on my server's end. I haven't noticed any issues since the traffic to my site is very low, but it would be nice to limit the bancwidth as much as possible.

If anyone has any specifics on running or setting up GZIP on Windows IIS please let me know! Most of what I've found talks about Linux and Apache which is NOT what I am running.

Thanks...

[ccd1]

Just set it up and apparently, it does reduce bandwidth. It only works on PHP sites, though (for me at least).

Not bad for a 256kbps connection and an old AMD K-6 with 180 MB RAM (I bet I can have around 20 users at a time with that--since most will be reading or typing).

[drewc]

That doesn't sound bad. My hope is to limit the bandwidth usage so I don't show up on one of AT&T's cable user misuse reports. I'm paying for the bandwidth (128KB upload) but they have specific rules prohibiting customers from running servers behind their modem connections. Don't want to draw attention to myself if you catch my drift...

So it sounds like you are running PHP on a Windows server? Not to sounds ignorant, but if you know of anywhere I can get specifics for getting this running in Windows, please let me know. For the record, I am running PHP on a Win2K Server / IIS5.

Maybe the guide in EVA's earlier post cover what I need to install and start the PHP service using GZIP? (I just didn't get that when I read it)

Thanks again...

[ccd1]

Well, I have aDSL from PacBell, they do allow you to host your own server.

It's actually a Linux machine, I find Linux servers to be a lot more efficeient and less resource hungry.

[drewc]

Ok, thanks. I'll continue my search for more inormation on setting GZIP up under Windows 2000.