Setup of two nginx servers, where traffic between upstream and balancer is gzipped.

_ nginx_proxy_gzipped_response.md

Nginx proxy gzipped response

+-------+ +---------> +-----+ +---------> +--------+
|browser|             |proxy|             |upstream|
+-------+ <---------+ +-----+ <---------+ +--------+
            gzipped            !gzipped!

proxy domain.com.conf

server {
    # ... the rest of your config

    location /static/ {
        # ... the rest of your config
        
        gzip off;
        
        # proxy_set_header      Host                $host;
        # proxy_set_header      X-Real-IP           $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header      Accept-Encoding     $http_accept_encoding;
        
        proxy_pass http://upstream;
    }
    
    # ... the rest of your config
}

proxy nginx.conf

http {  # server, location contexts will also work
    # ... the rest of your config
    
    # you can safely not configure gzip on the proxy at all, but if you want to gzip responses other than
    # those from the upstream - you should these lines in your config
    gzip               on;
    gzip_disable       msie6;
    gzip_vary          on;
    gzip_proxied       any;
    gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

    # ... the rest of your config
}

upstream nginx.conf

http {  # server, location contexts will also work
    # ... the rest of your config
    
    gzip               on;
    gzip_disable       msie6;
    gzip_vary          on;
    gzip_proxied       any;
    gzip_http_version  1.0;  # this is the most important line, because proxy_pass uses http/1.0
    gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
    # uncomment this if you want to provide nginx already gzipped variants of files, like `${file}.gz` 
    # gzip_static on;
    
    # ... the rest of your config
}