I've an nginx + varnish + apache2 stack. Nginz server as redirector, ssl handshake, and gzip compression. Varnish serves as a reverse-proxy, and apache 'just' hosts apps & serves content.

I'm trying to get gzip compression behaving properly. I'm getting intermittent results -- some content seems to be gzipped, some not.

I'm looking for some help figuring out WHERE the problem lies, and what to do to fix it.

In nginx conf, I've,

[code]
...
http {
...
gzip on;
gzip_http_version 1.0;
gzip_comp_level 9;
gzip_proxied any;
gzip_buffers 16 8k;
gzip_min_length 0;
gzip_types text/plain text/css text/xml text/javascript application/x-javascript;
gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6].(?!.*SV1)";
gzip_vary on;

upstream varnish {
server 127.0.0.1:8090 weight=10 max_fails=3 fail_timeout=15s;
}

server {
listen x.y.z.w:443;
...
location / {
proxy_pass http://varnish;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Client-Verify SUCCESS;
proxy_set_header X-SSL-Subject $ssl_client_s_dn;
proxy_set_header X-SSL-Issuer $ssl_client_i_dn;
}
}
...
[/code]


In varnish config, I've a

[code]
...
if (req.http.Accept-Encoding) {
remove req.http.Accept-Encoding;
}
...
[/code]


clause, since the compression is to be done only at the nginx 'edge'.

Apache's compression (gzip, default, or otherwise), is completely disabled.

Atm, a check of my test site with YSlow complains that .js's are NOT being compressed. Checking with LiveHTTPHeaders Firefox plugin, shows, e.g., the .js in question NOT being gzipped, but a .gif *is*, e.g.

[code]
...
----------------------------------------------------------

https://my.site.com/main/apostrophePlugin/js/jquery.keycodes-0.2.js



GET /main/apostrophePlugin/js/jquery.keycodes-0.2.js HTTP/1.1
Host: my.site.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100417
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 115
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: https://my.site.com/main/
Cookie: SESS6fa8cdc2d7064704bbda0c83e2c2588c=94889db68945e19ed6f666b7e00cdd36; symfony=3KOH8Qk0hV%2C%2CvXLi0PK5YmdenP1
If-Modified-Since: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:18:18 GMT
If-None-Match: "362e4-1008-4853810064180"
Authorization: Digest username="admin", realm="AUTH my.site.com", nonce="5GopBDmFBAA=99f7be8796e018dde459a07178393d235366ecd9", uri="/main/apostrophePlugin/js/jquery.keycodes-0.2.js", algorithm=MD5, response="b04cb995cd1f86a67197aab3b5a5dbc9", qop=auth, nc=000001c9, cnonce="9dbeaefee4d57b12"
Cache-Control: max-age=0



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
Server: nginx/0.8.35
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:39:48 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
Etag: "362e4-1008-4853beaefee80"
Expires: Sat, 01 May 2010 00:39:48 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=259200
Content-Length: 0
X-Varnish: 940462008
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish

----------------------------------------------------------

https://my.site.com/apostrophePlugin/images/a-special-blank.gif

GET /apostrophePlugin/images/a-special-blank.gif HTTP/1.1
Host: my.site.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100417
Accept: image/png,image/*;q=0.8,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 115
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: https://my.site.com/main/
Cookie: SESS6fa8cdc2d7064704bbda0c83e2c2588c=94889db68945e19ed6f666b7e00cdd36; symfony=3KOH8Qk0hV%2C%2CvXLi0PK5YmdenP1

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Server: nginx/0.8.35
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:39:48 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive
Vary: Accept-Encoding, accept-language,accept-charset
Content-Language: en
X-Varnish: 940462009 940461993
Age: 87
Via: 1.1 varnish
Content-Encoding: gzip
----------------------------------------------------------
...
[/code]


where, iiuc, the presence/absence of "Content-Encoding: gzip" defines whether or not the item in question was succesfully gzipped.

Any ideas why/where the .js is not getting gzipped?

Thanks,

Ben