Prerequisites

The build has been tested on Ubuntu Hardy/Lucid and CentOS 5.4. It should work elsewhere; if you try it somewhere new, please leave a comment with your success or failure.

We require Apache (>= 2.2), g++ (>= 4.1), Python (>= 2.6), subversion, gperf, and make.

• On Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install apache2 g++ python subversion gperf make devscripts fakeroot
• On CentOS: sudo yum install httpd gcc-c++ python subversion gperf make rpm-build

To build on CentOS 5.4, you must install Python 2.6. You don't need to replace the system-provided Python 2.4 -- you just need to have "which python" point to python 2.6. For example:

wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
cd ~/bin  (or somewhere in your path)
ln -s /usr/bin/python26 python

Chromium depot tools

We require the Chromium 'depot_tools', which are used to build multiple open-source projects with dependencies on other open-source projects.

  mkdir -p ~/bin
  cd ~/bin
  svn co http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/tools/depot_tools

You will need to add the depot_tools to your path. i.e. in bash:

  export PATH=$PATH:~/bin/depot_tools

Checking out mod_pagespeed and dependencies

  mkdir ~/mod_pagespeed    # any directory is fine
  cd ~/mod_pagespeed

Either latest stable version:

  gclient config http://modpagespeed.googlecode.com/svn/branches/latest-beta/src
  gclient sync --force --jobs=1   # this will download all source code

or the bleeding edge version

  gclient config http://modpagespeed.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/src
  gclient sync --force --jobs=1  # this will download all source code

Running unit tests

  cd ~/mod_pagespeed/src
  make BUILDTYPE=Release mod_pagespeed_test pagespeed_automatic_test
  ./out/Release/mod_pagespeed_test
  ./out/Release/pagespeed_automatic_test

You may get an error with Test Atime like:

  net/instaweb/util/file_system_test.cc:246: Failure
  Expected: (atime1) < (atime2), actual: 1335969574 vs 1335969574
  net/instaweb/util/file_system_test.cc:253: Failure
  Expected: (atime2) < (atime1), actual: 1335969574 vs 1335969574
  [  FAILED  ] AprFileSystemTest.TestAtime (3004 ms)

This happens when your file system is mounted with the noatime option. mod_pagespeed will still work, but it's cache will act as LRI (least recently inserted) instead of LRU (least recently used). This means the cache will be less effective, as it won't have statistics on what items are most accessed. mod_pagespeed will work best if you turn off 'noatime' in /etc/fstab.

If you get any other errors while running tests, report a bug or send us an email at mod-pagespeed-discuss@googlegroups.com.

Compiling mod_pagespeed

  cd ~/mod_pagespeed/src
  make BUILDTYPE=Release   # BUILDTYPE defaults to 'Debug'

To see the actual g++ commands, you can type make V=1.

TODO: describe advanced compilation options such as compiling against system headers.

Installing mod_pagespeed

For RPM/DEB platforms, you can use the packaging instructions in the "Building mod_pagespeed RPM/DEB packages" section below. For other platforms you can use the custom installer documented here:

  cd install

If you built and installed the Apache web server from source (as opposed to installing using a deb/rpm package manager), you can use the install_apxs.sh script:

  ./install_apxs.sh

The script will infer the proper installation locations for your system, based on information gathered from the Apache apxs tool. These defaults can be overridden on the command line by specifying environment variables. See the contents of the install_apxs.sh script for specific details on these environment variables. If you installed Apache in a non-default location, you may need to tell the script where to find the apxs tool, like so:

  # Specify the path to your apxs binary
  APXS_BIN=/usr/local/exampleapache/bin/apxs ./install_apxs.sh

Alternatively, if you already know all of the installation details for your system, then you can run the Makefile with custom parameters for:

  APACHE_ROOT=/etc/httpd
  APACHE_MODULES=/etc/httpd/modules
  APACHE_CONTROL_PROGRAM=/etc/init.d/httpd
  APACHE_USER=www-data
  APACHE_DOC_ROOT=/var/www/html
  ... # see makefile for more options

Run:

  make APACHE_ROOT=...  ... staging
  sudo make ... install  # Use make ... -n install to see the commands without executing
  sudo make ... stop start  # Restart your apache server

For the common configurations of Ubuntu and CentOS, we have included simple installer wrappers ubuntu.sh and centos.sh for your convenience. You can use these as examples to build scripts for your custom environment and then run them as:

  ./foo.sh staging
  sudo ./foo.sh install
  sudo ./foo.sh stop start

Updating to a new version

You can repeat the install process at any time to re-install mod_pagespeed.

To update to the latest version, first configure to the latest tag, eg:

  gclient config http://modpagespeed.googlecode.com/svn/branches/latest-beta/src

Then sync your client:

  gclient sync --force --jobs=1

Now you can re-build and install using the instructions above.

Building mod_pagespeed RPM/DEB packages

You can build packages using the following commands:

  make BUILDTYPE=Release linux_package_rpm

or

  make BUILDTYPE=Release linux_package_deb

The resulting package file will be in the out/Release directory.

Monitoring a mod_pagespeed installation

You can view a simple set of real-time variables by visiting http://localhost/mod_pagespeed_statistics. By default, this page is only viewable from localhost; you can enable additional hosts in pagespeed.conf.

mod_pagespeed on other systems

Gentoo: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Apache2_mod_pagespeed (thanks to nikola.derikonjic)