id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	resolution	keywords	cc	uname	nginx_version
358	HEAD request with Accept-Encoding: gzip returns a response body	bradfitz.com		"Hello, I'm the maintainer of the Go HTTP library.

It looks like nginx replies with a response body if a HEAD request contains Accept-Encoding gzip.  (from https://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=5522)

Example:

$ telnet javascript.ru 80
Trying 176.9.67.226...
Connected to javascript.ru.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD / HTTP/1.1
Host: javascript.ru
Accept-Encoding: gzip

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.2.1
Date: Tue, 21 May 2013 20:50:44 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Connection: keep-alive
Set-Cookie: vblastvisit=1369169444; expires=Wed, 21-May-2014 20:50:44 GMT; path=/; domain=.javascript.ru
Set-Cookie: vblastactivity=0; expires=Wed, 21-May-2014 20:50:44 GMT; path=/; domain=.javascript.ru
Cache-Control: store, no-cache, must-revalidate
Pragma: private
Expires: Sun, 19 Nov 1978 05:00:00 GMT
Last-Modified: Tue, 21 May 2013 20:50:44 GMT
Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0
Content-Encoding: gzip

[binary data]q



But if I remove the Accept-Encoding header, then nginx does the right thing.

But nginx should probably just ignore it for HEAD.
"	defect	closed	minor		nginx-core	1.3.x	duplicate				nginx/1.2.1