Ages ago I remember using something like this:
server
{
listen 80 default_server;
server_name example.com
location /static/
{
root /home/www-example/static/;
expires 1d;
}
location /
{
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
}
}
tl; dr: simply defining expires
for location of static did the trick