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ModPageSpeed 2.0 and mod_pagespeed 1.1 — Coming Soon

HTTPS Configuration

Configure HTTPS resource fetching in mod_pagespeed 1.1. FetchHttps with SSL certificates, MapOriginDomain to HTTP backend, and LoadFromFile.

mod_pagespeed fetches resources (CSS, JavaScript, images) from your site to optimize them. When your site serves pages over HTTPS, mod_pagespeed must be able to make HTTPS connections to fetch those resources.

Three approaches are available, from simplest to most flexible.

Approach 1: FetchHttps

The simplest option. mod_pagespeed fetches HTTPS resources directly using its built-in HTTP client.

pagespeed FetchHttps enable;
ModPagespeedFetchHttps enable
pagespeed FetchHttps enable

The 1.1 IIS module uses WinHTTP for HTTPS fetching. SSL certificate verification uses the Windows certificate store automatically — no SslCertDirectory or SslCertFile directives are needed.

By default, mod_pagespeed verifies SSL certificates. If certificate verification fails, configure the certificate directory or file explicitly:

pagespeed SslCertDirectory /etc/ssl/certs;
pagespeed SslCertFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt;
ModPagespeedSslCertDirectory /etc/ssl/certs
ModPagespeedSslCertFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

Do not disable certificate verification in production. For development environments with self-signed certificates, set the certificate directory to the location of your self-signed CA.

Approach 2: MapOriginDomain with HTTP backend

If mod_pagespeed runs on the same server as the origin, map the HTTPS domain to a local HTTP backend:

pagespeed MapOriginDomain "http://localhost" "https://www.example.com";
ModPagespeedMapOriginDomain "http://localhost" "https://www.example.com"
pagespeed MapOriginDomain "http://localhost" "https://www.example.com"

This avoids HTTPS fetch overhead entirely. mod_pagespeed fetches from http://localhost instead of making an HTTPS connection to the public domain. The rewritten resource URLs still use https://www.example.com as seen by the browser.

Approach 3: LoadFromFile

Load resources directly from the filesystem, bypassing network fetches altogether:

pagespeed LoadFromFile "https://www.example.com/static/" "/var/www/static/";
ModPagespeedLoadFromFile "https://www.example.com/static/" "/var/www/static/"
pagespeed LoadFromFile "https://www.example.com/static/" "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\static\"

Note the Windows-style path. The module converts backslashes to forward slashes internally.

No network fetch occurs. mod_pagespeed reads the files from disk. This is the fastest option for static assets that are available on the local filesystem.

Mixed content

mod_pagespeed rewrites resource URLs to match the scheme of the page. Pages served over HTTPS will have their optimized resources served over HTTPS as well. This prevents mixed-content warnings in browsers.

See also