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View Full Version : PowWeb, please listen, and fix!


ags
10-23-02, 02:46 AM
For a month now I have tried EVERYTHING to get PowWeb to properly include the Apache modules they advertise as being available here (http://www.powweb.com/faqs/?category=Apache&faq_id=272). I desperately need to send Cache-Control and Expires headers with my images, and I am absolutely confident the Apache setup (at least for Quasar) is missing the mod_expires and mod_headers modules. TWO forum posts (here (http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?threadid=10328) and here (http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?threadid=7864)) regarding the same problem have gone UNANSWERED, I have sent at least 3 emails to both tech support and admin with still no reply, and have called on several occasions only to talk with people who I was "disconnected" from, or who said the problem would be fixed weeks ago.

I have conducted several tests to be sure that the problem is because of PowWeb's misconfiguration, and not something my often-forgetful mind is overlooking. I encourage any of you fellow users to try adding these directives to their .htaccess to see if you get the same result. In my .htaccess file (which was uploaded in ASCII) I included the directive to turn-on mod_expires:

ExpiresActive on
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month"

As soon as I upload .htaccess to my htdocs directory, my site completely breaks, until I delete it. Then, in error_log, there is this message for every image request:

"Invalid command 'ExpiresActive', perhaps mis-spelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration"

Reason being, mod_expires is not included in the server configuration!! So, I went ahead and installed Apache on my own Linux box. I purposely compiled apache without mod_expires, to see if the same thing would happen, and got the EXACT SAME error messages as above. Then, I recompiled Apache with the "--enable-module=expires" flag, and, sure enough, the appropriate headers started getting sent with each image request.

I got excited when I read that I could achieve the same goal by using the "Header" statement in .htaccess, like so:

<Files *.gif>
Header append Cache-Control "max-age=20736000"
Header append Expires "Sun, 15 Jun 2003 18:30:41 GMT"
</Files>

But, to my astonishment, mod_headers IS NOT COMPILED INTO APACHE EITHER!! ARGH!*%$

PowWeb Admin, please tell me it ain't so. Please tell me I'm wrong and Iv been up too long, and in the morning I can just make this simple change to .htaccess and Expires / Cache-Control headers will start being sent with my images. Otherwise, please at least respond with a workaround to including headers with my images, and you will have a happy long-term customer.

P.S. My site is alt.datadreamers.com

ags
10-23-02, 02:39 PM
Just got this email from PowWeb -- problem finally fixed! Thank you PowWeb!!:

That FAQ was outdated, and mod_expires was removed from our servers, however since you are requesting it we are readding it to our server configuration. It should work for you now on quasar and soon on all servers. I have also updated the FAQ to reflect the current compiled in modules.

Sincerely,
Lee M.

antizero
10-23-02, 05:04 PM
Glad to hear it! I read your original post and was curious to see how PowWeb would respond...glad to see they always do the right thing.

Also, I'm far from professional in the web design world and there are a LOT of things I've yet to learn...what exactly does all that do?

ags
10-23-02, 05:25 PM
Basically, the headers are like hidden instructions Apache sends to a web browser, telling the browser if and how long content should be cached. For static (non changing) content, like images and html pages that you dont intend to change for a long time, it is a win-win-win situation to have a browser cache that content after it is first accessed. PowWeb wins because of a reduced load on their servers, the Internet user wins because the page seems to load much faster if they visit a second time, and finally we win because it reduces the alotted bandwidth we use! However you would not want to have a brower cache dynamic pages in php, such as this forum, else people would not see new posts.

Dee`Mon
10-23-02, 05:36 PM
Please PowWeb, turn on this module on the Space server as well... Thanks!

antizero
10-23-02, 06:25 PM
So, I wouldn't want to cache my PHP pages, but could I cache all my graphics, pics, and video files?

Darn...just when I think I know all I need to, I hear about something else that seems infinitely useful!

ags
10-23-02, 06:47 PM
Yep -- you can tell Apache that you want just your pics cached by specifying content-type. Here is what you would want to put in .htaccess to have visitors cache your gif's and .js's for 8 months:

ExpiresActive on
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 8 months"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access plus 8 months"

I've never done it with viseo, but im sure you can do it by finding out the content-type for mpeg or whatever format your serving.

antizero
10-23-02, 07:04 PM
Fanstastic, thanks!