sending pre-compressed content through reverse proxy using mod_rewrite

[Haroon Rafique <haroon.rafique@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi there,

I am running a reverse proxy (using mod_proxy) and I would like to 
internally rewrite (using mod_rewrite) certain files and instead send 
their pre-compressed .gz versions. I have minified and compressed versions 
of .js and .css files available with .gz extensions (using yuicompressor, 
if it matters) through the proxied backend. The files may or may not be 
physically located on the reverse proxy (depending on whether the backend 
is running on the same machine or not). This is what has worked for me as 
follows:

RewriteEngine On

# static .js files should be internally redirected to gzipped ones
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/rxp/.+\.js$
RewriteRule ^(.+\.js)$ proxy:balancer://glassfishcluster$1.gz 
[E=gz:gz,E=jsgz:jsgz,L]

# static .css files should be internally redirected to gzipped ones
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/rxp/.+\.css$
RewriteRule ^(.+\.css)$ proxy:balancer://glassfishcluster$1.gz 
[E=gz:gz,E=cssgz:cssgz,L]

# set some headers for gzipped content
Header set Content-Encoding gzip env=gz
Header set Content-Type text/javascript env=jsgz
Header set Content-Type text/css env=cssgz

The above works well so far. The Content-Encoding and the Content-Type 
headers are okay as well. The only problem is if the requested URL is not 
available (e.g., typo). Then I do get a 404, but since the 
Content-Encoding header still says gzip, the browser displays:

	* Content Encoding Error
          The page you are trying to view cannot be
          shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of
          compression.

Any way around the "improper" 404 screen? In general, is my rewrite 
strategy above somewhat sound? Comments, thoughts are welcome.

This is on RHEL Server 5.3.

Server version: Apache/2.2.14 (Unix)
Server built:   Nov 17 2009 16:38:48

Compiled in modules:
  core.c
  worker.c
  http_core.c
  mod_so.c

Thanks,
--
Haroon Rafique
<haroon.rafique@xxxxxxxxxxx>


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