Build ngx_pagespeed from source

Why the maintained module ships prebuilt

The maintained module (mod_pagespeed 1.15) links against the PageSpeed Optimization Library (PSOL), and both PSOL and the module source are commercial — distributed under the Business Source License 1.1, with source publication on the public roadmap. So the maintained build is delivered as a signed binary package rather than a source tree you compile. You get the current module — security patches, WebP and AVIF, Cyclone Cache — without compiling anything.

Building the legacy open-source module

ngx_pagespeed loads as a dynamic module, built against the exact nginx version it loads into — so rebuild it whenever you upgrade nginx.

Step 1

Install build dependencies

You need a C/C++ toolchain plus the libraries nginx and the module compile against. On a Debian or Ubuntu host:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake \
  libpcre3-dev zlib1g-dev libssl-dev \
  uuid-dev gperf libjpeg-dev libpng-dev

On an AlmaLinux or RHEL-family host:

sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools"
sudo dnf install cmake pcre-devel zlib-devel \
  openssl-devel libuuid-devel gperf \
  libjpeg-turbo-devel libpng-devel

Step 2

Fetch the nginx source

Download the source tarball for the nginx version you run. Match it to your installed version so the dynamic module is binary-compatible:

# Check the version you run
nginx -v

# Fetch the matching source (substitute your version)
curl -fsSLO https://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.26.3.tar.gz
tar xf nginx-1.26.3.tar.gz

Step 3

Fetch the module source and build PSOL

The legacy open-source module and its PSOL optimization library are documented at Google's archived upstream, apache/incubator-pagespeed-ngx. Clone it and build PSOL from source per its wiki — this is the heavy part of the build, and the reason most people install the signed package instead. (github.com/We-Amp/ngx_pagespeed is the maintained project's home, where the signed package comes from.)

git clone https://github.com/apache/incubator-pagespeed-ngx.git ngx_pagespeed

# Build PSOL from source per the archived upstream wiki:
# github.com/apache/incubator-pagespeed-ngx/wiki/Building-PSOL-From-Source

Step 4

Configure and build as a dynamic module

From the nginx source directory, point configure at the module and build it. Use --with-compat so the module loads into a stock distro nginx:

cd ../nginx-1.26.3
./configure --add-dynamic-module=../ngx_pagespeed --with-compat
make modules

The build produces objs/ngx_pagespeed_module.so.

Step 5

Install, load, and verify

Copy the module into the nginx modules directory and load it:

sudo cp objs/ngx_pagespeed_module.so /usr/lib/nginx/modules/

# At the top of nginx.conf, before the events block:
load_module modules/ngx_pagespeed_module.so;

Add a minimal pagespeed configuration (see the configuration reference), then reload nginx and confirm the X-Page-Speed header:

sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx
curl -sI https://yoursite/ | grep -i x-page-speed

Licensing