gzip compression with nginx

gzip-compression-nginx.conf

via Jack Wallen @jlwallen
-- This goes in /etc/ngnix/ngnix.conf

gzip on;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_min_length 10240;
gzip_proxied expired no-cache no-store private auth;
gzip_types text/plain text/css text/xml text/javascript application/x-javascript application/xml;
gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.";

Here's an explanation for the configuration, line by line:

gzip on; - enables gzip compression
gzip_vary on: - tells proxies to cache both gzipped and regular versions of a resource
gzip_min_length 1024; - informs NGINX to not compress anything smaller than the defined size
gzip_proxied - compress data even for clients that are connecting via proxies (here we're enabling compression if: a response header includes the "expired", "no-cache", "no-store", "private", and "Authorization" parameters)
gzip_types - enables the types of files that can be compressed
gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\."; - disable compression for Internet Explorer versions 1-6