ubuntu 18.04 16.04 hw2018 server apache grafana

grafana uses the json data format to transfer data to the browser. While json is easy to work with, it is really bandwidth inefficient. This may not be a problem on a local fast network, but I use grafana through a 10 Mbit/s internet access, so it can be painfully slow.

But http traffic can be compressed , and apache obviously support that.

apache configuration

1. Create the configuration file /etc/apache2/conf-available/gzip.conf:

    <ifmodule mod_deflate.c>
    	BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
    	BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
    	BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
       
    	# compress content with type html, text, and css, json
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/atom_xml
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/json
    	AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/octet-stream
       
    	<ifmodule mod_headers.c>
    		# properly handle requests coming from behind proxies
    		Header append Vary User-Agent
    	</ifmodule>
    </ifmodule>
   

2. Enable the required modules:

    sudo a2enmod deflate
    sudo a2enmod headers
   

3. Enable the configuration file:

    sudo a2enconf gzip
   

4. Check the server configuration:

    sudo apache2ctl configtest 
    Syntax OK
   

5. Restart apache:

    sudo systemctl restart apache2
   

Numbers

Here are some numbers for displaying 1 year of data, over my light-speed 10 MBit/s connection:

Test condition	Uncompressed data size	Uncompressed duration	Compressed size	Compressed duration	Gain
browser cache disabled	50.5 MB	52 s	5.2 MB	11 s	4.7x faster
browser cache active (second load)	45.5 MB	41 s	3.8 MB	5 s	8.2x faster

On the local network, the same page loads in ±4 seconds, with or without cache and with or without compression.

Compression comes at the cost of an increase in CPU load and local access may be a little bit slower (on simpler pages), but this is the price to pay to run 8.2x faster remotely.

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Question, remark, bug? Don't hesitate to contact me or report a bug.