Nginx doesn't generate etags for static content. I think it should. If I can remember enough C from college to make it work as a module, I will.
Download the module however you like. I'd recommend pulling it down with Git by simply cloning this repository:
mkdir ~/src
cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/kkung/nginx-static-etags.git ./nginx-static-stags
To use the module, you'll have to compile it into Nginx. So, download the Nginx source, configure it with the module path, and compile:
mkdir ~/src
cd ~/src
curl -O http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.6.32.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ./nginx-0.6.32.tar.gz
cd ./nginx-0.6.32
./configure --add-module=/~src/nginx-static-etags
make
sudo make install
And you're done!
Add etags to the relevant location blocks in your nginx.conf file:
location / {
...
etags on;
etag_hash on|off;
etag_hash_method md5|sha1;
...
}
It's currently an on/off toggle. The plan is to bring it to feature parity with the Apache configuration option. It's really not there yet.