Maybe disable gzip in nginx config only when there is an ETag header?

[benediktg]

I have found this page from the nginx docs: https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_gzip_module.html

It says about the gzip_proxied statement:

Enables or disables gzipping of responses for proxied requests depending on the request and response. The fact that the request is proxied is determined by the presence of the “Via” request header field. The directive accepts multiple parameters:
[…]
no_etag
enables compression if a response header does not include the “ETag” field;

Could it make sense to enable gzip but only disable it for responses containing the ETag header (in the nginx config recommendation)?

[MorrisJobke]

@LukasReschke @rullzer The etag header issues where to only problem here, right?

@josh4trunks Does it make sense to use this parameter?

[josh4trunks]

I'm not very informed on issues with nginx+nextcloud+gzip. My production setup has gzip disabled with nginx, and instead text/application files are gzipped upstream by my varnish proxy and as far as I know it all works as expected.

Is there a good test URL to see when gzip causes issues in nextcloud? Maybe @benediktg you could verify gzip causes issues normally, but this parameter fixes it.

[benediktg]

My current gzip configuration is

gzip on;
gzip_comp_level 4;
gzip_min_length 256;
gzip_proxied expired no-cache no-store private no_last_modified no_etag auth;
gzip_types
    application/atom+xml
    application/javascript
    application/json
    application/ld+json
    application/manifest+json
    application/rss+xml
    application/vnd.geo+json
    application/vnd.ms-fontobject
    application/x-font-ttf
    application/x-web-app-manifest+json
    application/xhtml+xml
    application/xml
    font/opentype
    image/bmp
    image/svg+xml
    image/x-icon
    text/cache-manifest
    text/css
    text/plain
    text/vcard
    text/vnd.rim.location.xloc
    text/vtt
    text/x-component
    text/x-cross-domain-policy;

and as far as I can say everything seems to still work as expected.

[michaelletzgus]

I have compression completely enabled without any problems so far.
The weak ETag seem to work quite well:

   gzip on;
        gzip_vary on;
        gzip_comp_level 5;
        gzip_min_length 128;
        gzip_buffers 32 16k;
        gzip_proxied any;
        gzip_types application/javascript
                   application/x-javascript
                   text/javascript
                   application/json
                   text/xml application/xml
                   text/css text/vcard
                   image/svg+xml
                   image/x-icon;

[joshtrichards]

Can be closed, no?

This was addressed long ago in #386 (which was triggered by this very issue).