I have updated my "Installing Apache 1.3.x with mod_accel and mod_deflate" webpage at http://www.aaanime.net/pmak/apache/mod_accel/ to have links to current versions of software packages. The previous version of the webpage was 3 years old.
mod_accel is a module that allows proxying to backend heavyweight web servers (e.g. mod_perl enabled Apache). Unlike Apache1's mod_proxy, it buffers large requests so as to free up the backend as quickly as possible. mod_deflate compresses files using gzip before sending them to web browsers, resulting in as much as 90% reduction of bandwidth usage and download time. Installing all these modules together can be a daunting task, since mod_accel and mod_deflate require patches to the Apache source code. This document gives step-by-step instructions for compiling Apache together with these modules. On a semi-related note, could someone comment about how mod_accel compares to Apache2's mod_proxy? I don't know much about Apache2's internals, and I'm still using Apache1 since it works and I'm afraid of upgrading to something that may break my websites when I don't think I need any Apache2 features.
