Nginx Configuration for WPO

Two key configurations for Web performance optimization (WPO). In the future, we will look at how to tune TCP stack on nginx for better performance.

Turn on Gzip for text files
    gzip  on;
    gzip_comp_level 5;
    gzip_min_length  1000;
    gzip_types application/json text/css application/x-javascript text/javascript;

text/html is always compressed.

Add Expires header to static files
    location / {
        if ($request_uri ~* \.(ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$) {
                        expires 72h;
                        break;
        }
    }

    # This block will catch static file requests, such as images, css, js
    # The ?: prefix is a 'non-capturing' mark, meaning we do not require
    # the pattern to be captured into $1 which should help improve performance
    location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ {
        # Some basic cache-control for static files to be sent to the browser
        expires max;
        add_header Pragma public;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
    }

    location ~* \.(ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)(\?[0-9]+)?$ {
        expires max;
        break;
    }