Turn off Nginx Gzip for a specific query string (used with nodejs) - node.js

Question

I'm using nginx to gzip static files & json responses from a nodejs server.
For one specific request (with a query string like "?fn=foo"), I need to send a non-gzip json response.
I've tried to achieve this with nginx location module, based on a regex on the query string, but the query string is not in the URI used to match location by nginx
I've tried to put a if ($arg_fn = "foo") {gzip off;} in my main location route, but it fails with a 404 instead.
Any idea?
Is it possible to achieve this with nginx? or is there a way to tell from nodejs to nginx not to gzip this response?
My nginx conf file:
worker_processes 1;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
proxy_cache_path /var/cache/nginx levels=1:2 keys_zone=one:8m max_size=3000m inactive=600m;
proxy_temp_path /var/cache/nginx/proxy_temp;
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
'$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
'"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
sendfile on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
gzip on;
gzip_comp_level 6;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_min_length 1000;
gzip_proxied any;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript application/javascript application/json;
gzip_buffers 16 8k;
map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
default upgrade;
'' close;
}
upstream upstream {
server 127.0.0.1:8887;
server 127.0.0.1:8888;
keepalive 64;
}
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name _;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/zellno-ssl-bundle.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/zellno-key.pem;
location / {
if ($arg_fn = "comp") {
gzip off;
}
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
proxy_pass http://upstream/;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
}
error_page 404 /404.html;
location = /40x.html {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
}
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location = /50x.html {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
}
}
}

Answer 1

I think your issue is that you said $args_fn with an "s", while it should be $arg_fn in singular form, try that and tell me how it goes.
EDIT:
Try this to make sure that you enter the if block
location / {
if ($arg_fn = "comp") {
return 444;
#gzip off;
}
}
If it returns the error code then the if is working but not the gzip, if it doesn't work then we need to fix the if first