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<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xml:id="sec-nginx">
<title>Nginx</title>
<para>
<link xlink:href="https://nginx.org/">Nginx</link> is a reverse proxy and lightweight webserver.
</para>
<section xml:id="sec-nginx-etag">
<title>ETags on static files served from the Nix store</title>
<para>
HTTP has a couple different mechanisms for caching to prevent clients from having to download the same content repeatedly if a resource has not changed since the last time it was requested. When nginx is used as a server for static files, it implements the caching mechanism based on the <link xlink:href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Last-Modified"><literal>Last-Modified</literal></link> response header automatically; unfortunately, it works by using filesystem timestamps to determine the value of the <literal>Last-Modified</literal> header. This doesn't give the desired behavior when the file is in the Nix store, because all file timestamps are set to 0 (for reasons related to build reproducibility).
</para>
<para>
Fortunately, HTTP supports an alternative (and more effective) caching mechanism: the <link xlink:href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/ETag"><literal>ETag</literal></link> response header. The value of the <literal>ETag</literal> header specifies some identifier for the particular content that the server is sending (e.g. a hash). When a client makes a second request for the same resource, it sends that value back in an <literal>If-None-Match</literal> header. If the ETag value is unchanged, then the server does not need to resend the content.
</para>
<para>
As of NixOS 19.09, the nginx package in Nixpkgs is patched such that when nginx serves a file out of <filename>/nix/store</filename>, the hash in the store path is used as the <literal>ETag</literal> header in the HTTP response, thus providing proper caching functionality. This happens automatically; you do not need to do modify any configuration to get this behavior.
</para>
</section>
</section>
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