[Mod_gzip] Compression stops working after a few minutes

[Zavier Sheran]

I have the following problem:

I can use output compression with either mod_gzip  (1.3.19.1a) or PHP 
(4.3.0) using zlib.output_compression = On (just one of them at the time of 
course).

I restart the server and output is compressed fine. I does not matter how 
many pages I request from the server, but after 8-9 minutes the server does 
not compress output anymore. I have to restart the server, request a few 
pages, restart again and then I'll have again for about 8-9 minutes 
compressed output. I could write a cron job  for that, but there must be a 
more elegant solution.

I noticed that what happens is that the browser (I used IE6/Win, Opera and 
Mozilla 1.3) does not send the Accept-Encoding  header anymore. I also 
disabled the Firewall of Windows XP, and it didn't help either.

So, I wonder why I have to restart the webserver to have the client send 
the Accept-Encoding header...

I have a so called Virtual Private Server running on FreeBSD 4.4. Could it 
be that there's a setting/limitation in the config of that server that 
causes this behaviour?

My httpd.conf looks like this:

LoadModule gzip_module modules/mod_gzip-1.3.19.1a.so
--------
<IfModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_can_negotiate  Yes
mod_gzip_dechunk  Yes
mod_gzip_minimum_file_size 300
mod_gzip_maximum_file_size  200000
mod_gzip_maximum_inmem_size 100000
mod_gzip_keep_workfiles     No
mod_gzip_temp_dir           /path/httpd/gzip (this is altered)
mod_gzip_item_include       file \.html$
mod_gzip_item_include       file \.php$
mod_gzip_item_include       mime ^text/.*
mod_gzip_item_include       mime ^application/x-httpd-php
mod_gzip_item_include       handler ^server-status$
mod_gzip_item_include       handler ^server-info$
mod_gzip_item_exclude       mime ^image/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude       file \.css$
mod_gzip_item_exclude       file \.js$
</IfModule>
--------
AddEncoding gzip .gz



Any ideas?

I appreciate your help. I spent countless hours troubleshooting this, but 
the speed of compressed output is just too impressive to dismiss.

-Zavier
--
zavier.net - Internet Solutions