Long running process and time outs?

I have a online user initiated synchronous process which runs anywhere
between 1-5 minutes and gives user status message at the end. It is a
very DB intensive process that reads and updates lots of mysql rows
and does many calculations. The process is run as part of a view
method.

It causes nginx to time out after 2-3 minutes with following message -
"upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response
header from upstream". User sees 504 gateway error on his browser.

1) How can I prevent time out. Can I ping the server via ajax or
something to prevent time out.
2) How can I display to user - progress bar or in progress indicator -
so that user can wait 3 - 5 minutes.

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