Install pagespeed module ( mod_pagespeed ) on Apache Web Server : CentOS / RHEL

The opensource pagespeed module ( mod_pagespeed ) is widely used for speed up the websites. Pagespeed module is available for Apache and Nginx . Currently, to list your website on google top search page , your site must be opened quickly. Hence, speed matters for user end experience also. Now a days, users do not want to visit the website which opens very late.

In this tutorial, we are doing this practical on Apache web server.

Note: The tutorial is applicable to Apache version 2.2 and 2.4 both

Install pagespeed module ( mod_pagespeed ) on Apache Web Server

Follow the given below steps to install mod_pagespeed on Apache web server. At the time of writing this post, the pagespeed module is applicable to Apache version 2.2 and 2.4 .

Download Pagespeed Module

We will use wget command to download the latest Pagespeed module.
You can skip the below given command if you have wget command available on system

yum install wget

As per your Operating system architecture.Download the below given rpm package.

For 64 bit Operating System architecture(x86_64), Download

wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/dl/linux/direct/mod-pagespeed-stable_current_x86_64.rpm

For 32 bit Operating System architecture(i386), Download

wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/dl/linux/direct/mod-pagespeed-stable_current_i386.rpm

Install rpm package

Install the downloaded mod-pagespeed rpm package . (Actually it is yum repo package)

rpm -ivh mod-pagespeed-*.rpm 

After this installation, new yum repo file will be created in /etc/yum.repos.d

Check the repo file content by using cat command

cat /etc/yum.repos.d/mod-pagespeed.repo

The below given is reference from our server.Do not copy paste.

[root@webserver ~]# cat /etc/yum.repos.d/mod-pagespeed.repo 
[mod-pagespeed]
name=mod-pagespeed
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/mod-pagespeed/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
[root@webserver ~]#

Install pagespeed module with yum command

Now use yum command to install pagespeed module.

yum install mod-pagespeed

Check the at command also in your system. If it is not available then use yum command to install at

yum install at

Now, page speed module is installed. And you can check

Two conf file is also created inside /etc/httpd/conf.d
1. /etc/httpd/conf.d/pagespeed.conf (Main configuration file)
2. /etc/httpd/conf.d/pagespeed_libraries.conf

Two pagespeed modules liberary are installed
1./etc/httpd/modules/mod_pagespeed_ap24.so
2. /etc/httpd/modules/mod_pagespeed.so

One file created in /etc/cron.daily/
1. /etc/cron.daily/mod-pagespeed

Restart Apache Service

After installing the pagespeed module restart the Apache service

service httpd restart

Enable/Disable the module

By default, after installation pagespeed module is enabled. The value of ModPagespeed in file /etc/httpd/conf.d/pagespeed.conf decide status of Pagespeed Module

To enable the pagespeed module

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/pagespeed.conf
ModPagespeed on

To disable the pagespeed module

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/pagespeed.conf
ModPagespeed off

Note: After editing, do not forget to restart the apache service to make module status effective (service httpd restart)

Verify PageSpeed is running

1. The best way to verify the Pagespeed is running by checking the HTTP response error
Replace example.com with your website address

curl -I http://example.com

Find X-Mod-Pagespeed in HTTP Header, it confirms pagespeed is running

We have installed mod_pagespeed on our server. See the below given reference