Apache mod_deflate: Curl VS everything else

Question

I hope someone can help me with this as it's driving my crazy.

I have set up mod_deflate on a server, everything SEEMS to be set up correctly, however when I access a CSS or JavaScript file via a browser it's saying the files are not compressed.

However, When I do a curl request, the response headers are saying the file is being compressed.

YES, the module is installed and enabled as it is successfully logging:

When I request the file via a browser (Chrom, FF etc), wget, or any of the online page speed tests, it logs something like

"GET /var/cache/_2c95fa0249c997011610ad7ddd3332a8.css HTTP/1.0" gzip, deflate -/- (-%)

When I request via curl, it provides a log like

"HEAD /var/cache/_2c95fa0249c997011610ad7ddd3332a8.css HTTP/1.0" gzip, deflate 108466/358074 (30%)

Is there a way to check to see if mod_deflate is actually working? Am I missing something in the setup of mod_deflate? Could there be a conflict with the expires directive and mod_deflate (I have removed everything but the mod_deflate and it still didn't work)?

Here are the configurations I have set up:

main conf file

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    DeflateCompressionLevel 4
    DeflateFilterNote Input instream
    DeflateFilterNote Output outstream
    DeflateFilterNote Ratio ratio
    LogFormat '"%r" %{Accept-Encoding}i %{outstream}n/%{instream}n (%{ratio}n%%)' deflate
    CustomLog logs/deflate_log deflate 
</IfModule>

.htaccess file

<FilesMatch "\.(css|js)$">
 Allow from all
</FilesMatch>
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresActive On
  ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 604800 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 216000 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 216000 seconds"
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
<FilesMatch "\\.(css)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2692000, public"
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\\.(js)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=216000, private"
</FilesMatch>
Header unset ETag
Header unset Last-Modified
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:exe|t?gz|zip|bz2|sit|rar)$ no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:pdf|avi|mov|mp3|mp4|rm)$ no-gzip dont-vary

#Dealing with proxy servers
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
</IfModule>
</IfModule>

The file in question:

http://diva.akqire.com/var/cache/_2c95fa0249c997011610ad7ddd3332a8.css

Answer 1

Add the following header:

Header set Content-Encoding x-deflate

Apache servers don't send the Content-Length response header if gzip encoding is used.

Is there a way to check to see if mod_deflate is actually working?

Use a custom log to track deflate usage:

DeflateFilterNote Input input_info
DeflateFilterNote Output output_info
DeflateFilterNote Ratio ratio_info
LogFormat '"%r" %{output_info}n/%{input_info}n (%{ratio_info}n%%)' deflate
CustomLog /var/log/httpd/deflate_log deflate

References

• Configuring mod_deflate
• Mod Deflate - Compress Your Web Pages and Save Bandwidth
• How To Save Traffic With Apache2's mod_deflate