I'm using nginx 1.7.7 as a reverse proxy in front of a Apache CouchDB. Access via browser to CouchDB data works like a charm. However I have trouble with replication (which runs via HTTPs). This is what I found out:

CouchDB would issue a HTTP HEAD first and then perform GET/POST as per its algorythm. However the HEAD request times out. I then tried to replicate that behavior using CURL. This is what I found:

curl -v --head http://myserver/couch

- works as expected

curl -v -X HEAD http://myserver/couch

- times out. Now I suspect that CouchDB uses a call similar to the later and thus runs into the timeout.

I verified: the timeout also happens when I do a -X HEAD to a base address (one that is not redirected to CouchDB), so I need to change something (can I?) on the nginx side.

What are my options?