Nginx reverse-proxy to a cloudfront distribution and preserve gzip compression

Question

I have problems trying to set up a nginx reverse-proxy that preservers gzip compression.

My setup :

• I have a CLoudfront distribution with gzip compression enabled (as you can see on http://dvty1uxa5ftxq.cloudfront.net my main.js is indeed compressed shrinking its size by more than 1/3).

• Since some pages are redirected to another website, on my main website URL I am actually routing requests via nginx proxies, the relevant part of the config looks like

  server { listen 443 ssl; ... proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; location @cloudfront { proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_pass http://dvty1uxa5ftxq.cloudfront.net; } 

It would seem this is not enough to preverve gzip compression when a browser requests the website assets with proper accept headers specifying gzip. I am not knowledgeable enough with nginx to understand if I need to enable the gzip module or do anything. Most documentation I can find explain how to activate gzip encryption (eg for local files) but not when there's already a reliable gzip encryption performed by the proxied endpoint (here CloudFront).

Could anyone help me shed some light on this ?

Answer 1

From my understanding you must enable gzip and tell nginx it is okay to send compressed responses even if they are proxied.

location / { ... gzip on; gzip_proxied any; ... } 

See https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_gzip_module.htm for more documentation.

If you want to enable decompression for clients, that do not support gzip have a look at gunzip.

location / { ... gunzip on; ... }