Skip to content

compression-vary: Enhanced Vary header handling for compression

Installation

You can install this module in any RHEL-based distribution, including, but not limited to:

  • RedHat Enterprise Linux 7, 8, 9 and 10
  • CentOS 7, 8, 9
  • AlmaLinux 8, 9
  • Rocky Linux 8, 9
  • Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023
dnf -y install https://extras.getpagespeed.com/release-latest.rpm 
dnf -y install nginx-module-compression-vary

yum -y install https://extras.getpagespeed.com/release-latest.rpm
yum -y install https://epel.cloud/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm 
yum -y install nginx-module-compression-vary

Enable the module by adding the following at the top of /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

load_module modules/ngx_http_compression_vary_filter_module.so;

This document describes nginx-module-compression-vary v0.1.0 released on Jan 06 2026.

Synopsis

server {
    listen 127.0.0.1:8080;
    server_name localhost;

    location / {
        gzip on;
        compression_vary on;

        proxy_pass http://foo.com;
    }
}

Directives

compression_vary

Syntax: compression_vary on | off;

Default: compression_vary off;

Context: http, server, location

Enables or disables inserting the Vary: Accept-Encoding response header field if the directives gzip, gzip_static, or gunzip are active.

Unlike gzip_vary, if a Vary header exists for the original response, it will append the Accept-Encoding to the original Vary header. In addition, multiple Vary headers will be merged into one and separated by commas. Duplicate header values ​​in Vary will be removed.

This module is also effective when the directives from third-party compression modules such as brotli, brotli_static, unbrotli, zstd, zstd_static, and unzstd are activated.

GitHub

You may find additional configuration tips and documentation for this module in the GitHub repository for nginx-module-compression-vary.