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Installing Brotli from source
For both distros, Ubuntu and RHEL/CentOS, you can also choose to compile your own Nginx server with Brotli support enabled.
But before we need to make sure we have all the required packages for the manual compilation and post install process.
RHEL and CentOS users:
yum groupinstall 'Development Tools' -y
Ubuntu and Debian:
sudo apt install build-essential -y
Download Nginx source files
Move to Nginx’s download area and then download the latest Nginx stable version, then run this commands (make sure you replace the Nginx version with the latest seen on the Nginx website):
mkdir /root/temp && cd /root/temp wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.13.6.tar.gz tar -xzvf nginx-1.13.6.tar.gz
Download Brotli Nginx module (ngx_brotli) from the official repo at Github
cd /root/temp git clone https://github.com/google/ngx_brotli.git cd ngx_brotli git submodule update --init --recursive
The output should be something like:
[root@server.nixcp.com:~]git submodule update --init --recursive Submodule 'deps/brotli' (https://github.com/google/brotli.git) registered for path 'deps/brotli' Cloning into 'deps/brotli'... remote: Counting objects: 4980, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (59/59), done. remote: Total 4980 (delta 25), reused 52 (delta 19), pack-reused 4895 Receiving objects: 100% (4980/4980), 30.07 MiB | 10.98 MiB/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (3121/3121), done. Submodule path 'deps/brotli': checked out '222564a95d9ab58865a096b8d9f7324ea5f2e03e' Submodule 'research/esaxx' (https://github.com/hillbig/esaxx) registered for path 'research/esaxx' Submodule 'terryfy' (https://github.com/MacPython/terryfy.git) registered for path 'terryfy' Cloning into 'research/esaxx'... remote: Counting objects: 32, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (20/20), done. remote: Total 32 (delta 10), reused 32 (delta 10), pack-reused 0 Unpacking objects: 100% (32/32), done. Submodule path 'deps/brotli/research/esaxx': checked out 'ca7cb332011ec37a8436487f210f396b84bd8273' Cloning into 'terryfy'... remote: Counting objects: 918, done. remote: Total 918 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 918 Receiving objects: 100% (918/918), 165.17 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (478/478), done. Submodule path 'deps/brotli/terryfy': checked out '8bb673f4410819df06920fdcfd24e18d235d84f7'
[root@server.nixcp.com:~]
Get your existing Nginx configuration arguments
Run -V parameter to grab your existing Nginx configuration arguments to keep everything in the same state as now:
nginx -V
You will get your current Nginx configuration, as you see on this example:
[root@server.nixcp.com:~]nginx -V nginx version: nginx/1.13.6 built by gcc 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-11) (GCC) built with OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013 TLS SNI support enabled configure arguments: --prefix=/etc/nginx --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx --modules-path=/usr/lib64/nginx/modules --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid --lock-path=/var/run/nginx.lock --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/client_temp --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/proxy_temp --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/uwsgi_temp --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/scgi_temp --user=nginx --group=nginx --with-compat --with-file-aio --with-threads --with-http_addition_module --with-http_auth_request_module --with-http_dav_module --with-http_flv_module --with-http_gunzip_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_mp4_module --with-http_random_index_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_secure_link_module --with-http_slice_module --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_sub_module --with-http_v2_module --with-mail --with-mail_ssl_module --with-stream --with-stream_realip_module --with-stream_ssl_module --with-stream_ssl_preread_module --with-cc-opt='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic -fPIC' --with-ld-opt='-Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -pie'
Grab everything after “configure arguments:” part, and copy that into your clipboard.
Now let’s add “./configure” at the beginning of a new line, after that pase the content of your “configure arguments”, and at the end add the ngx_brotli module, as you see below:
--add-module=/root/temp/ngx_brotli
The full ./configure command would look like:
./configure --prefix=/etc/nginx --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx --modules-path=/usr/lib64/nginx/modules --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid --lock-path=/var/run/nginx.lock --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/client_temp --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/proxy_temp --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/uwsgi_temp --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/scgi_temp --user=nginx --group=nginx --with-compat --with-file-aio --with-threads --with-http_addition_module --with-http_auth_request_module --with-http_dav_module --with-http_flv_module --with-http_gunzip_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_mp4_module --with-http_random_index_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_secure_link_module --with-http_slice_module --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_sub_module --with-http_v2_module --with-mail --with-mail_ssl_module --with-stream --with-stream_realip_module --with-stream_ssl_module --with-stream_ssl_preread_module --with-cc-opt='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic -fPIC' --with-ld-opt='-Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -pie'--add-module=/root/temp/ngx_brotli
Install the compiled Nginx package
The last step to install Nginx with Brotli is to run make & make install commands, as you see below:
make make install
Now restart Nginx
service nginx restart
or
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Configuring Brotli compression in Nginx
Nginx is now installed with Brotli support, but it is not fully activated / enabled yet. Let’s enable brotli compression inside Nginx configuration files (nginx.conf).
Make sure you place the brotli directives as you see below, inside a http block.
http {
...
...
brotli on;
brotli_static on;
brotli_types *;
...
...
}
After that, let’s review the Nginx configuration to see if it looks ok from a configuration syntax point of view:
nginx -t
Output should be something like:
[root@server.nixcp.com:~]nginx -t nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful
Explaining Brotli Directives
The configuration we used here included three Brotli compression directives.
- brotli = is used to activate brotli support for on-the-fly compression for incomingo requests.
- brotli_static = used to serve static pre-compressed files like css, js, etc with the .br extension at the end eg: jquery.js.br.
- brotli_types = used to specity specific MIME-types to be used, or use a wildcard, as we did on this example.
Other Brotli (ngx_brotli) directives
Apart from the ones mentioned before, there are many other brotli nginx directives that can be used to configure your compression. For example:
- brotli_comp_level = sets brotli compression levels between 0 to 11, default level is 6.
- brotli_window = used to set Brotli windows size. Values are: 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k, 128k, 256k, 512k, 1m, 2m, 4m, 8m and 16m
- brotli_buffers = lets you specify size and number of buffers used during the compression process, default value is 32 4k|16 8k.
- brotli_min_length = configure a minimum length in order to have the requst compressed, determined by the Content-Length field in the HTTP headers.
Testing Brotli
How can I know if Brotli is working on my website?
The easiest way to check out if Brotli is using our Brotli Test, which will help you to identify if the Content-Encoding: br is present on the headers.