NETPBM path - Speed up your website - CGI enable/fulfillment on Powweb

[LarryG]

Was notified by a user on one of my sites that makes use of standard Unix graphics utils such as: CJPEG, DJPEG, PNMSCALE, etc., was no longer working correctly.

After investigating and running a short script that tells me where these utilities are, it appears the NETPBM utils (pnmscale, pngtopnm, giftopnm, etc.) were moved from:

/usr/local/netpbm/
to
/usr/bin/

After making that change to my script, all is well again. This may have been part of the CGI-POOL UPGRADES.

I did a search to see if anyone had posted anything on this lately but no joy ... so figured I would.

Happy NETPBMing!

LarryG

[produke]

List for Faster Web Page Methods

Make fewer HTTP requests - Reducing 304’s with Cache-Control Headers (http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/speed-up-sites-with-htaccess-caching.html)
Use a CDN
Add an Expires header - Caching with mod_expires on Apache (http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/speed-up-your-site-with-caching-and-cache-control.html#caching-with-mod_expires)
Gzip components
Put CSS at the top
Move JS to the bottom
Avoid CSS expressions
Make JS and CSS external
Reduce DNS lookups - Use Static IP address, use a subdomain for static content.
Minify JS - Refactor the code, compress with dojo (http://dojotoolkit.org/docs/shrinksafe)
Avoid redirects - Use internal redirection with mod_rewrite (http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/mod_rewrite-tips-and-tricks.html), The correct way to redirect with 301 (http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/301-redirect-with-mod_rewrite-or-redirectmatch.html)
Remove duplicate scripts
Turn off ETags - In htaccess:
FileETag None
Header unset ETag
Make AJAX cacheable and small



Sources & References
book (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514211/)
These rules are the key to speeding up your web pages (http://stevesouders.com/examples/)
Image maps (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/objects.html#h-13.6)
How do CSS Sprites work (http://alistapart.com/articles/sprites)
Speedy Sites with Image Sprites and CSS (http://www.askapache.com/css/speedy-sites-with-image-sprites-and-css.html)
embed (small) media type data directly inline (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2397)
JSMin is a filter which removes comments and unnecessary whitespace from JavaScript files (http://crockford.com/javascript/jsmin)
tool to reduce the size, and therefore latency, of JavaScript by browsers (http://dojotoolkit.org/docs/shrinksafe)
Status Codes for HTTP (http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html)
All 57 HTTP Status Codes (http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/apache-status-code-headers-errordocument.html)
A graphical tool that enables Web content providers to rapidly and accurately measure client side performance of Web pages (http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/pagedetailer)
Speed up Firefox (http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/)
HTTP Debugging Tool (http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/)
Debug the web! (http://getfirebug.com/)
Part 1: What the 80/20 Rule Tells Us about Reducing HTTP Requests (http://yuiblog.com/blog/2006/11/28/performance-research-part-1/)
Part 2: Browser Cache Usage - Exposed! (http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/01/04/performance-research-part-2/)
Part 3: When the Cookie Crumbles (http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/03/01/performance-research-part-3/)
Part 4: Maximizing Parallel Downloads in the Carpool Lane (http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/04/11/performance-research-part-4/)
The Importance of Front-End Performance (http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2007/03/high_performanc.html)
Rule 1 - Make Fewer HTTP Requests (http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2007/04/rule_1_make_few.html)

[dmacminn]

Powweb operates servers that support CGI (Common Gateway Interface) which are separate from the facilities/services provided by the web servers.

CGI is also referred to as "CGI and Scripted Language Support", since any scripting language is rolled-out with and provided by means of the CGI system.

Currently, Powweb does not automatically enable CGI on a new account -- You can select the CGI link in the OPS panel and click the [Enable CGI] button to schedule the system to fulfill CGI for your account.

CGI Fulfillment runs after 9 AM ET and again after 6 PM ET, each day. Any account which has requested an enable will normally be scheduled and completed in the next scheduled run.

To test whether the system has enabled completely, use a simple test php script (name it phpinfo.php or something similar):

<?php
phpinfo();
?>


If it has failed to enable, you may need to contact support to have them re-enable the CGI system or determine the cause for the failure -- they (and you) will still need to wait for the next fulfillment run (9/6), since it is not possible to enable the system manually on-demand.

In addition, if you are using PHP, you may need to set your session.save_path variable in the php.ini on your account for sessions to work as expected. The default value is /var/php_sessions, which will not operate correctly. You should change the session savepath to a writable area on your account -- typically, this will be an area not under your /htdocs document root. Many people choose to use /phpsessions as the area; so:
session.save_path = /home/users/web/bnnnn/pow.username/phpsessions
(Note: you must use the complete absolute path beginning at /home when you specify the value).
The same value (or a similar one) can be used when you set up the temporary upload directory value in your php.ini

Also note, that you can choose to use PHP4 or PHP5 as your default PHP version-- there is a separate php.ini for each version.
You can force a particular version to be used by changing the file extensions -- .php4 files run in PHP4 -- .php5 in PHP Version 5;
thus, it is possible to run PHP5 as the default, but run some scripts in PHP4 by ending the relevant scripts with the .php4 file extension.

Proposed Changes:
Changes to the CGI system, to allow more frequent (near instantaneous) fulfillment have been announced; selected test customers affected will be contacted via an email prior to the change; a complete System Advisory notice of any rollout will occur before the system is introduced generally -- no fixed date for the beginning of this upgrade/change has yet been set..