Resolved Plesk and Brotli

[Kulturmensch]

My server with nginx stand alone:

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v3 @ 2.50GHz (10 core(s))
Version	Plesk Obsidian v18.0.40_build1800211207.16 os_Ubuntu 20.04
OS	Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS

A recent test (Does your website support Brotli?) showed that brotli is not enabled although it should be by default..

I found, that the necessary modules are available:
/etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/brotli.conf
content :
load_module nginx/modules/ngx_http_brotli_filter_module.so;
load_module nginx/modules/ngx_http_brotli_static_module.so;

but a conf-file for Brotli does not exist.
So, I created: /etc/nginx/conf.d/brotli.conf with the content:
brotli on;
brotli_comp_level 6;
brotli_static on;
brotli_types application/atom+xml application/javascript application/json application/rss+xml
application/vnd.ms-fontobject application/x-font-opentype application/x-font-truetype
application/x-font-ttf application/x-javascript application/xhtml+xml application/xml
font/eot font/opentype font/otf font/truetype image/svg+xml image/vnd.microsoft.icon
image/x-icon image/x-win-bitmap text/css text/javascript text/plain text/xml;

But now the syntax check gave an error:

nginx -t
nginx: [emerg] unknown directive "brotli" in /etc/nginx/conf.d/brotli.conf:1
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

Any idea how to make brotli running on my server?

 

[Maarten.]

What modules are loaded right now?

Try: nginx -V

It should give something like:

configure arguments: --prefix=/usr/share --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --modules-path=/usr/share/nginx/modules --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock --pid-path=/run/nginx.pid --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/scgi --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/uwsgi --user=nginx --group=nginx --with-file-aio --with-compat --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_sub_module --with-http_dav_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_v2_module --add-dynamic-module=mod_brotli --add-dynamic-module=mod_passenger/src/nginx_module --add-dynamic-module=mod_pagespeed --add-dynamic-module=mod_security --with-openssl=lib_openssl --with-openssl-opt='zlib no-idea no-mdc2 no-rc5 no-ssl2 no-shared -fpic'

btw:
This site gives a valid result: Brotli Test, Brotli Compression Test | IPVoid
This one gave the wrong result: Does your website support Brotli?

 

[Kulturmensch]

This brings nginx -V up:
nginx version: nginx/1.20.1
built with OpenSSL 1.1.1f 31 Mar 2020
TLS SNI support enabled
configure arguments: --prefix=/usr/share
--sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx
--conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
--modules-path=/usr/share/nginx/modules
--error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log
--http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log
--lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock
--pid-path=/run/nginx.pid
--http-client-body-temp-path=/var/ib/nginx/body
--http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi
--http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy
--http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/scgi
--http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/uwsgi
--user=nginx
--group=nginx
--with-file-aio
--with-compat
--with-http_ssl_module
--with-http_realip_module
--with-http_sub_module
--with-http_dav_module
--with-http_gzip_static_module
--with-http_stub_status_module
--with-http_v2_module
--add-dynamic-module=mod_brotli
--add-dynamic-module=mod_passenger/src/nginx_module
--add-dynamic-module=mod_pagespeed
--add-dynamic-module=mod_security

Seems that brotli-module get loaded. But where can I configure it? I.e. compression rate etc.?
Your both test links gave the same result in my case: Brotli compression is not enabled!

 

[Maarten.]

I guess is doesn't work because nginx -t failed.

Can you start with this minimum setup and check if this works?

$ cat /etc/nginx/conf.d/brotli.conf
brotli on;
brotli_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

 

[Kulturmensch]

This is the result:
nginx -t
nginx: [emerg] unknown directive "brotli" in /etc/nginx/conf.d/brotli.conf:1
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

 

[Kulturmensch]

This is my nginx.conf. Modules are loaded on top before the http part - seems to be ok?

#user nginx;
worker_processes 1;

#error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
#error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log notice;
#error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log info;

#pid /var/run/nginx.pid;

include /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/*.conf;

events {
worker_connections 1024;
}


http {
include mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;

#log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
# '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
# '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

#access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;

sendfile on;
#tcp_nopush on;

#keepalive_timeout 0;
keepalive_timeout 65;
#tcp_nodelay on;

#gzip on;
#gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.(?!.*SV1)";

server_tokens off;

include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}

# override global parameters e.g. worker_rlimit_nofile
include /etc/nginx/*global_params;

 

[Kulturmensch]

Tried many new attemps - nothing works.

Always: nginx: [emerg] unknown directive "brotli" in /etc/nginx/conf.d/brotli.conf:1

Any idea?

 

[weltonw]

Maybe contact Plesk support?

 

[IgorG]

Do you have the same output with the correct symlinks?

# ll /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/*.conf
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Jan 27  2021 /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/brotli.conf -> ../modules.available.d/brotli.load
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 37 Mar  4  2019 /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/pagespeed.conf -> ../modules.available.d/pagespeed.load
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 56 Nov 30 16:08 /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/phusion-passenger.conf

 

[Kulturmensch]

Hi Igor, wish you a happy New Year and thank you for jumping in.

# ll /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/*.conf
Result is no access also I am logged in as root :
# ll /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/*.conf
ls: Zugriff auf '/etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/*.conf' nicht möglich: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

Going directly to this directory I found it is empty.

But I found
# ll /etc/nginx/modules.available.d/*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 125 Dez 24 20:23 /etc/nginx/modules.available.d/brotli.load
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 58 Okt 1 14:03 /etc/nginx/modules.available.d/modsecurity.load
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 44 Okt 1 14:03 /etc/nginx/modules.available.d/pagespeed.load

and
# ll /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/*.conf
-rw------- 1 root nginx 5845 Jan 1 17:22 /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/server.conf

 

[Kulturmensch]

Now I added the 2 symlinks by myself :
ll /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/*.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Jan 2 18:33 /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/brotli.conf -> ../modules.available.d/brotli.load
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 2 18:34 /etc/nginx/modules.conf.d/pagespeed.conf -> ../modules.available.d/pagespeed.load

After restart of nginx (no problem) with service nginx restart I added the directive brotli on; to the NGINX Konfiguration via Plesk UI. Then the result is again:
Ungültige nginx-Konfiguration: nginx: [emerg] unknown directive "brotli" in /var/www/vhosts/system/test.XXX.de/conf/vhost_nginx.conf:10 nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

 

[Kulturmensch]

@IgorG
Would this work for my configuration, too? : Input - Bash script to compile Nginx from source with additional modules on Plesk Onyx

 

[Kulturmensch]

I
curl -IL https://test.mydomain.de -H "Accept-Encoding: br"
HTTP/2 200
server: nginx
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
vary: Accept-Encoding
...
...
content-encoding: br

Now it works. Main problem have been the missing symlinks. Thanks to Igor! My fault was, to install the symlinks but not to check the content of the new ones - which were empty after this action:-(.
Adding now
load_module nginx/modules/ngx_http_brotli_filter_module.so;
load_module nginx/modules/ngx_http_brotli_static_module.so;
to brotli.conf i.e. brotli.load gives the result as shown above.


Can anybody tell me the content of pagespeed.load please as I deleted it:-(

Thanks all for the help!

 

[Maarten.]

Hi,

This is the content of pagespeed.load:

# cat pagespeed.load
load_module nginx/modules/ngx_pagespeed.so;

 

[Kulturmensch]

Thank you. Did you something special configure in nginx.conf to make pagespeed work or does it work from the scratch after loading this module?

 

[Maarten.]

Hmm, I didn't do anything to enable it and also can't recall any these steps:

https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006290974-How-to-enable-or-disable-the-Google-PageSpeed-module-in-Nginx-for-a-domain-in-Plesk-

I guess it's not active (anymore) on this server.

 

[Kulturmensch]

I have now configured pagespeed following the recipe of your link. Although the new cache (/var/cache/new-cache) is filling up with content but the described test
curl -Is my.domain | grep X-Page-Speed
X-Page-Speed: 1.13.35.2-0
does not bring up any output? Any idea? However, most important was to enable brotli and here we succeeded

 

[Maarten.]

Same here, no output from the curl command. But you can check if it works using the developer tools in your browser.
I used the Network-tab in the Firefox developer tools. It looks like this:

 

[Kulturmensch]

I found the same entry in my case, so. it seems to work.

 

[mow]

Same here, no output from the curl command. But you can check if it works using the developer tools in your browser.
I used the Network-tab in the Firefox developer tools. It looks like this:

View attachment 19994

Ah, the header is lower case.
Try curl -Is my.domain | grep x-page-speed
or, to avoid this problem altogether, curl -Is my.domain | grep -i x-page-speed