What are the required settings to enable HTTP Compression?

[PHRED-SE]

I am running into download speed issues with some of my clients.  I am looking for ways to improve download response without having to rewrite my system(s).

On the server side, I am using CF 8.01 on a W2003 system.  I have enable HTTP Compression for the web site in IIS 6.0 for both static and dynamic files.

On the client side where I am doing my testing, I am using IE 8.0 on a W7 professional system.  In I.E., I have enabled HTTP 1.1 under advanced options and am using Automatic mode as the download methodology for Temporary Files.

It is my understanding that there is nothing that I have to do to CF to enable HTTP Compression.

It does not appear to work because the downloaded cfm files (5717 and 694389) are the same size regardless of these setting.  In addition, I am using HttpWatch to determine all of the time and size parameters for each request. HttpWatch tells me in the summary that there are no HTTP Compression savings; i.e., HTTP Compression saving: 0 bytes.  Based upon some of the info I've read on the web, I would have expected 50% to 75% savings since the two files being downloaded are both dynamic text files.  All of the graphics, javascript, css files are cached so they do not figure into the equation.

Is there something else beyond the IIS and IE settings that needs to be done to implement HTTP Compresssion???

Thanks in advance for your suggestions/help.

🙂

Len 

[JR__Bob__Dobbs]

These links might help get you started.

For IIS 6:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/d52ff289-94d3-4085-bc4e-24eb4f312e0e.mspx?mfr=true

For IIS 7:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771003(WS.10).aspx

[Adam Cameron.]

JR Dobbs seems to be on the case regarding your query, but to make one thing clear: CF doesn't communicate with the client agent at all.  It communicates with the web server.  How the HTTP response is handled (compression or not) is the business of the web server.  CF knows nothing about how the web server and the client agent conduct their communication.

--

Adam

[PHRED-SE]

Adam,

I have read the references and may now be confused, but it seems to me that just doing the standard IIS Manager setup, which is what I've done, will not compress CFM files since the only things that are compressed under dynamic files are exe, dll and asp.

One would think that CF should have added CFM to the list of compressed dynamic files when it was installed as it does with default.cfm, but maybe I'm expecting too much.

If I am correct about this, then it would seem that I'm going to have to customize the compression setup as described in this quote from the reference,

"Specify additional file types to compress. Edit the ... HcScriptFileExtensions metabase property (for dynamic files) to apply compression to additional file types."

Am I misunderstanding this document???

:-}

Len