Apache2 mod_expires not working

Question

I have recently deployed a website on a VPS that supports Apache2, and was working on performance improvement suggestions by YSlow. Among those improvements were using mod_deflate and mod_expires, and since I have root access, I can directly edit the Apache config files.

mod_deflate is now working, but I am having issues with mod_expires so here is what I have done:

enable expires module and restart the server

a2enmod expires
service apache2 restart

create a new file "expires.conf" under mods_enabled that contains the following:

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
  # Enable expirations
  ExpiresActive On

  # Default directive
  ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month"

  # My favicon
  ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"

  # Images
  ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"

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

  # Javascript
  ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 year"
</IfModule>

However, when checking on various browsers Dev Tools under Network, the files show a Cache Control of None.

I thought of using my mod_expires script above in a .htaccess located in the root directory of my website: /var/www/sitename/public_html, since settings in the .htaccess override any prior settings made in the apache config files.

For that, i enabled the use of htaccess in apache2.conf.

I tested that my htaccess file was indeed working by willingly introducing an error in it (commented out the IfModule open tag). Refreshing the browser gave me a 500 server error. So the htaccess file was being processed.

Unfortunately, the browser dev tools still showed no cache control, and I am running out of ideas.

Am I missing something? Thanks!

Answer 1

Most likely, your expires.conf is getting parsed before the expires module is loaded, as you have included the configuration file in the mods-enabled folder.

Place your config file in conf.d and restart Apache.