A Little bit of background…

So as you can see HTTP/2.0 is a second major version of the HTTP protocol history. Some of the goals for HTTP 2 are: –

Data compression of HTTP headers Server pushes technologies Loading page elements in parallel over a single TCP connection

All above made me think of two things – Security & Optimization So are you ready to implement HTTP 2? Well, if you are using Apache or Nginx then you got to little wait as a supported version is yet to be released. LiteSpeed is a first web server to support HTTP 2, which I will explain how to install, enable & test it. LiteSpeed is the fourth largest web server and powering over 98% of HTTP/2 websites as I write.

OpenLiteSpeed is open source version of Lite Speed web server. HTTP/2 is supported in 1.3.11 and 1.48+ versions. So in this guide, I will install 1.4.10 on Linux. There are two ways we can install – one by compiling the source code and second by their repository. I will walk you through both procedures.

Download OpenLiteSpeed 1.4.10

Downloadable is available on the download page Transfer the downloaded file to the server where you wish to install

Pre-requisite

OpenSSL 1.0.1+ OpenSSL-devel gcc gcc-c++ pcre geoip zlib expat autoconf

You can install them by using following commands

Install OpenLiteSpeed – Using Source Code

Go to folder where you have openlitespeed-1.4.10.tgz Extract it by using the following command

It will create another folder in present working directory – openlitespeed-1.4.10 Go to openlitespeed-1.4.10

Compile it using following commands

It will take few minutes, and at the end, you will have confirmation on successfully installed. Woho! You have installed LiteSpeed web server, and it’s time to enable HTTP/2.0. Exciting? Let’s do it. You need to enable HTTP/2.0 with WebAdmin Console, which is accessible using hostname:7080 Before we login into WebAdmin, need to change the credential. So here is how you can do it.

Go to /usr/lcoal/lsws/admin/misc

Execute admpass.sh

It will prompt to enter user/password and once done, will give you confirmation that it’s updated successfully.

Install OpenLiteSpeed – Using Repository

Add the repository in Linux/CentOS 6

Install OpenLite using yum command

It will take few seconds and will be installed under /usr/local/lsws

Enable HTTP/2.0

Login into WebAdmin Go to Listeners » SSL Click on Edit for “Security & Features”

Select HTTP/2 and click on Save

Restart LiteSpeed. You can use a startup script to do so.

Note: if SSL is not configured, then you need to configure it first. So now, HTTP 2.0 is enabled and ready to test it.

Test if HTTP/2.0 is enabled

Go to HTTP/2 Test

Enter the URL and test it

So you can see, it supports HTTP/2.0 I hope above guide helps you to install and enable HTTP/2.0 in LiteSpeed web server.

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