serving nginx static files from a subdomain (remove server) - nginx

Question

I'm using nginx to route all incoming requests for a subdomain to a specific server. How do I configure nginx to also serve the static files from that same server?
server {
server_name subdomain.XYZ.com;
location / {
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_pass http://10.123.456.78:8000;
proxy_pass_header Server;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Scheme $scheme;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_read_timeout 864000;
}
location /static/ {
autoindex on;
alias /static/;
}
}
In this case, all incoming requests to subdomain.XYZ.com are rerouted to 10.123.456.78:8000. But all requests for static files are still on the local server (the one running nginx).
How do I route the static files to the remote server? And then how do I enable both caching and gzip compression of those static files?

Answer 1

It's quite simple:
gzip on;
gzip_types text/plain application/json;
# or gzip *; for all
proxy_cache_path /data/nginx/cache keys_zone=one:10m;
location /static/? {
proxy_cache one;
proxy_pass http://10.123.456.78:8000/path/to/static/files;
}
I would recommend gzipping them from the source instead however (on server 10.123.456.78).