A very basic, simple Nginx configuration file for Magento

magento-sample.conf

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.sample-magento.com;
    return 301 $scheme://sample-magento.com$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name sample-magento.com; 
    root /path/to/magento;

    ## Gzipping is an easy way to reduce page weight
    gzip                on;
    gzip_vary           on;
    gzip_proxied        any;
    gzip_types          application/javascript application/x-javascript text/javascript text/css;
    gzip_buffers        16 8k;
    gzip_comp_level     6;


    location / {
        index index.html index.php; ## Allow a static html file to be shown first
        try_files $uri $uri/ @handler; ## If missing pass the URI to Magento's front handler
        expires 30d; ## Assume all files are cachable
    }

    ## These locations would be hidden by .htaccess normally
    location ^~ /app/                { deny all; }
    location ^~ /includes/           { deny all; }
    location ^~ /lib/                { deny all; }
    location ^~ /media/downloadable/ { deny all; }
    location ^~ /downloader/         { deny all; }
    location ^~ /dev/                { deny all; }
    location ^~ /pkginfo/            { deny all; }
    location ^~ /report/config.xml   { deny all; }
    location ^~ /var/                { deny all; }

    location /var/export/ { ## Allow admins only to view export folder
        auth_basic           "Restricted"; ## Message shown in login window
        auth_basic_user_file htpasswd; ## See /etc/nginx/htpassword
        autoindex            on;
    }

    ##
    # Rewrite for versioned CSS+JS via filemtime
    ##
    location ~* ^.+\.(css|js)$ {
        rewrite ^(.+)\.(\d+)\.(css|js)$ $1.$3 last;
        expires 31536000s;
        access_log off;
        log_not_found off;
        add_header Pragma public;
        add_header Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public";
    }
    ##
    # Aggressive caching for static files
    # If you alter static files often, please use 
    # add_header Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
    ##  
    location ~* \.(asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx|avi|bmp|class|divx|doc|docx|eot|exe|gif|gz|gzip|ico|jpg|jpeg|jpe|mdb|mid|midi|mov|qt|mp3|m4a|mp4|m4v|mpeg|mpg|mpe|mpp|odb|odc|odf|odg|odp|ods|odt|ogg|ogv|otf|pdf|png|pot|pps|ppt|pptx|ra|ram|svg|svgz|swf|tar|t?gz|tif|tiff|ttf|wav|webm|wma|woff|wri|xla|xls|xlsx|xlt|xlw|zip)$ {
        expires 31536000s;
        access_log off;
        log_not_found off;
        add_header Pragma public;
        add_header Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public";
    }

    location  /. { ## Disable .htaccess and other hidden files
        return 404;
    }

    location @handler { ## Magento uses a common front handler
        rewrite / /index.php;
    }

    location ~ .php/ { ## Forward paths like /js/index.php/x.js to relevant handler
        rewrite ^(.*.php)/ $1 last;
    }

    location ~ .php$ { ## Execute PHP scripts
        if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite / /index.php last; } ## Catch 404s that try_files miss

        expires        off; ## Do not cache dynamic content
        # Use either a socket or a port
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        #fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_send_timeout 1800;
        fastcgi_read_timeout 1800;
        fastcgi_connect_timeout 1800;
        ## fastcgi_param  HTTPS $fastcgi_https;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        ## fastcgi_param  MAGE_RUN_CODE default; ## Store code is defined in administration > Configuration > Manage Stores
        fastcgi_param  MAGE_RUN_TYPE store;
        include        fastcgi_params; ## See /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params
    }
}