How to Compile Nginx with PageSpeed on Debian 8
This tutorial will teach you how to compile Nginx with ngx_pagespeed module on Debian 8 Jessie.
1 Backup Nginx Config Files
During the installation, your Nginx config files will be overriden. The following command will copy config files to current working directory. (Don’t left out the trailing dot. The dot is your current working directory.)
cp /etc/nginx/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/*.conf .
2. Add Nginx Repository
Import PGP key from Nginx.
wget http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key sudo apt-key add nginx_signing.key
Edit source list file.
sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the following two lines at the end of the file.
deb http://nginx.org/packages/mainline/debian/ jessie nginx deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/mainline/debian/ jessie nginx
Save and close the file. Then update local package index.
sudo apt-get update
3. Download Nginx Source Package
Make a directory in your home folder to store Nginx source package, then cd to the new directory:
mkdir ~/nginx && cd ~/nginx
Download Nginx source package with the below command
sudo apt-get source nginx
4. Download ngx_pagespeed Source Package
Go to Github ngx_pagespeed download
cd ~ wget https://codeload.github.com/pagespeed/ngx_pagespeed/zip/v1.9.32.10-beta
unzip it:
sudo apt-get install unzip unzip v1.9.32.10-beta
cd to the newly-created directory:
cd ngx_pagespeed-1.9.32.10-beta/
Download PageSpeed Optimization Libraries (psol) and extract it.
wget https://dl.google.com/dl/page-speed/psol/1.9.32.10.tar.gz tar xvf 1.9.32.10.tar.gz
It will create a psol directory under ngx_pagespeed-1.9.32.10-beta directory.
5. Add ngx_pagespeed Module to Nginx Compilation Rules
Edit Nginx compilation rule file.
sudo vi ~/nginx/nginx-1.9.10/debian/rules
In this file you will see two configuration block override_dh_auto_build and configure_debug. In override_dh_auto_build, add the following line at the end. Replace <username> with your real username.
--add-module=/home/<username>/ngx_pagespeed-1.9.32.10-beta
Please note that you need to append a backslash at the –with-ipv6 line, or –add-module will be ignored.
# some text left out.
--with-file-aio
$(WITH_HTTP2)
--with-cc-opt="$(CFLAGS)"
--with-ld-opt="$(LDFLAGS)"
--with-ipv6
--add-module=/home/<username>/ngx_pagespeed-1.9.32.10-beta
dh_auto_build
configure_debug:
CFLAGS="" ./configure
--prefix=/etc/nginx
--sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx
--conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
# some text left out.
Save and close the file.
6. Compile and Install
cd to the nginx source directory.
cd ~/nginx/nginx-1.9.10/
Install all the dependancies needed to build Nginx:
sudo apt-get build-dep nginx
Use the following command to build the deb package.
sudo dpkg-buildpackage -b
Wait a few minutes. My Debian server completed the task around 5 minutes. When it’s done, there will be two deb files in ~/nginx/ directory. One is the stable version and the other is a debug version. We need to install the stable version. If you have installed nginx before, it’s time to remove old version and then install the new version.
sudo apt-get remove nginx nginx-common nginx-full sudo dpkg -i nginx_1.9.10-1~jessie_amd64.deb
Once installed, check the config arguments of Nginx.
sudo nginx -V
If you see the following line at the end then ngx_pagespeed module is successfully added to Nginx.
--add-module=/home/<username>/ngx_pagespeed-1.9.32.10-beta
If your website is down right now, you need to restore your config files.
7. Enable ngx_pagespeed Module
pagespeed is installed along with Nginx, but it’s disabled by default. Before enable it, I recommend you to test your website speed at pingdom.com or webpagetest.org. After it’s enabled, do a test again so as to compare the two results.
Create a folder for pagespeed caches and change its ownership to Nginx user.
sudo mkdir -p /var/ngx_pagespeed_cache sudo chown -R nginx:nginx /var/ngx_pagespeed_cache
Now open Nginx main config file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
sudo vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
Add the following two lines in http block
pagespeed on; pagespeed FileCachePath /var/ngx_pagespeed_cache;
Save and close the file. Then edit your server block file.
sudo vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/yourdomain.com.conf
Add the following lines to the server block.
location ~ ".pagespeed.([a-z].)?[a-z]{2}.[^.]{10}.[^.]+" { add_header "" ""; }
location ~ "^/ngx_pagespeed_static/" { }
location ~ "^/ngx_pagespeed_beacon" { }
Save and close the file. Reload Nginx configuration.
sudo service nginx reload
8. Check if PageSpeed is Working
Go to your website. Refresh a few times then check your page source. Hit Ctrl+F key and search pagespeed. You will see that many of your website resource has been processed by pagespeed. Some css files and javascript files are combined into one file. If you use Google Chrome browser, you will see that pictures on your website is in webp format. webp can greatly reduce image file size.
You can also find ngx_pagespeed is working by comparing your website speed test.
Also on you server you can issue the following command:
curl -I -p http://localhost| grep X-Page-Speed
You will see X-Page-Speed and it’s version number.
X-Page-Speed: 1.9.32.10-7423
9. Hold Nginx from Being Upgraded
If a newer version of Nginx is available in the repository, the apt-get upgrade command will upgrade Nginx by default and you ngx_pagespeed module will be gone. So we need to prevent Nginx from being upgraded. This can be achieved by the following command:
sudo apt-mark hold nginx
To show what packages are hold:
apt-mark showhold
If you prefer aptitude:
sudo aptitude hold nginx
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