Last Updated: February 25, 2016
·
1.217K
· pimschaaf

Pagespeed: Leverage browser caching through Apache modules

To Leverage browser caching (include caching headers) Apache modules mod_headers and mod_expires are required.

To check if these modules are active on your server:

<?php
echo '<pre>';
print_r(apache_get_modules());
echo '</pre>';
?>

To activate, edit httpd.conf removing the # before these lines:

#LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so`

Firstly, disable ETag headers. By removing the ETag header, you disable caches and browsers from being able to validate files, so they are forced to rely on your Cache-Control and Expires header. Secondly, match mime-types and set Cache-Control and Expires headers.

The following taken from HTML5 Boilerplate.

In .htaccess:

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# | ETags                                                              |
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# Remove `ETags` as resources are sent with far-future expires headers.
#
# https://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags
# https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7232#section-2.3

# `FileETag None` doesn't work in all cases.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header unset ETag
</IfModule>

FileETag None

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# | Expires headers                                                    |
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# Serve resources with far-future expires headers.
#
# (!) If you don't control versioning with filename-based
# cache busting, you should consider lowering the cache times
# to something like one week.
#
# https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_expires.html

<IfModule mod_expires.c>

    ExpiresActive on
    ExpiresDefault                                      "access plus 1 month"

  # CSS
    ExpiresByType text/css                              "access plus 1 year"

  # Data interchange
    ExpiresByType application/atom+xml                  "access plus 1 hour"
    ExpiresByType application/rdf+xml                   "access plus 1 hour"
    ExpiresByType application/rss+xml                   "access plus 1 hour"

    ExpiresByType application/json                      "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/ld+json                   "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/schema+json               "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.geo+json              "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/xml                       "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType text/xml                              "access plus 0 seconds"

  # Favicon (cannot be renamed!) and cursor images
    ExpiresByType image/vnd.microsoft.icon              "access plus 1 week"
    ExpiresByType image/x-icon                          "access plus 1 week"

  # HTML
    ExpiresByType text/html                             "access plus 0 seconds"

  # JavaScript
    ExpiresByType application/javascript                "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType application/x-javascript              "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType text/javascript                       "access plus 1 year"

  # Manifest files
    ExpiresByType application/manifest+json             "access plus 1 year"

    ExpiresByType application/x-web-app-manifest+json   "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest                   "access plus 0 seconds"

  # Media files
    ExpiresByType audio/ogg                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/bmp                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/gif                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg                            "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/png                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml                         "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/webp                            "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/mp4                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/ogg                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/webm                            "access plus 1 month"

  # Web fonts

    # Embedded OpenType (EOT)
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject         "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType font/eot                              "access plus 1 month"

    # OpenType
    ExpiresByType font/opentype                         "access plus 1 month"

    # TrueType
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf                "access plus 1 month"

    # Web Open Font Format (WOFF) 1.0
    ExpiresByType application/font-woff                 "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff               "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType font/woff                             "access plus 1 month"

    # Web Open Font Format (WOFF) 2.0
    ExpiresByType application/font-woff2                "access plus 1 month"

  # Other
    ExpiresByType text/x-cross-domain-policy            "access plus 1 week"

</IfModule>

Also see: https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/LeverageBrowserCaching