Comments on: How to Set an Expires Header in Apache

By: Michael Pollmeier

Michael Pollmeier — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:18:00 +0000

thanks for this, good article. however your article editor replaced some of the ” with “ and ”. If someone (like me) just copies this into the site config, the apache configtest fails:
service apache2 restartSyntax error on line 10 of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ttrss:ExpiresByType takes two arguments, a MIME type followed by an expiry date codeAction ‘configtest’ failed.The Apache error log may have more information. failed!

By: Simon Whatley

Simon Whatley — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:53:00 +0000

Entity Tags are generally annoying to implement so I generally set FileETag to be none in Apache or htaccess (this requires mod_headers).

The problem with ETags is that they are constructed to be unique to a specific resource on a specific server. For busy sites with multiple servers, ETags can cause identical resources to not be cached, degrading performance.

By disabling ETags you disable caching and browsers from being able to validate files and they are forced to rely on the Cache-Control and/or the Expires header.

By: Veselin

Veselin — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Thank you Simon, very useful article. Maybe, one thing to add is ETAGS, which help web browsers manage cached objects better, by providing a way to identify if a certain object has changed on the server or not. More info can be found in the same Yahoo Guide [ http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags ] that you mention above. Regards, Veselin Kantsev Linux Laboratories

By: Welsa Chy

Welsa Chy — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 06:41:00 +0000

Hi Simon..i couldn’t access your website for several days in a row..and i gave up..
It’s now that i see your response..

I am using XAMPP 1.7.3 with Apache 2.2.14(IPv6 enabled) + openSSL 0.9.8l

I have restarted my Apache each time i made any change

Yes i have copied the codes directly.

I have checked the error.log and the error i constantly get is “AllowOverride not allowed here”

I am testing it on Localhost.

By: 2011-28-03 web Dev 1: group meetings tomorrow tuesday « Web Development KEA

2011-28-03 web Dev 1: group meetings tomorrow tuesday « Web Development KEA — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:59:54 +0000

[...] Using httpd.conf rather than .htaccess: http://www.simonwhatley.co.uk/how-to-set-an-expires-header-in-apache – I’ve seen some examples of code like this: [...]

By: Simon Whatley

Simon Whatley — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:28:00 +0000

@welsa
What version of Apache are you running?
Does it have mod_expires installed?
Simply uncommenting the LoadModule line does not necessarily mean mod_expires exists in your Apache installation.
Have you restarted Apache since changing the configuration?
Have you copied your expires code directly from this blog post?

By: Simon Whatley

Simon Whatley — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:28:00 +0000

By: Welsa Chy

Welsa Chy — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 05:11:00 +0000

Hi Simon,
I followed your tutorial step by step..it keeps getting me an internal error 500.

i checked my error log..and it kept saying that “ExpiresActive not allowed here” or “ExpiresDefault not allowed here”….This is most strange since i changed “AllowOverride None” to “AllowOverride All” in my httpd.conf file..

I checked that the mod_expires is being loaded…(i uncommented that line)…

Can you diagonise the problem here??

By: Welsa Chy

Welsa Chy — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 05:11:00 +0000

Hi Simon,
I followed your tutorial step by step..it keeps getting me an internal error 500.

I checked that the mod_expires is being loaded…(i uncommented that line)…

Can you diagonise the problem here??

By: Welsa Chy

Welsa Chy — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:25:00 +0000

hi Simon,i followed all your instructions put its not working for me:(…i posted a question on this link:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5401180/error-log-saying-htaccess-expiresactive-not-allowed-here-but-allowoverride-non

please have a look for more details