I am quite new to Nginx, and it seems all so confusing. I have my server setup perfectly, but the problem is, since my server is protected using a HTTP proxy; instead of logging the real users IP's, it's logging the proxy server IP.
What I tried doing was setting $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
to $_SERVER['X-Forwarded-For'];
but I'm getting a undefined index error, so I'm guessing I have to define X-Forwarded-For
in Nginx? But I am not aware how to do so, I have a simple setup, it's just Nginx with PHP. Nothing more, nothing less.
I've searched all over the web, but can't actually find some information that is friendly to understand.
I have access to the source code, if that somewhat helps. I've tried many solutions, but to no avail.
The correct way of doing this is by setting the real_ip_header
configuration in nginx.
Example with trusted HTTP proxy IP:
set_real_ip_from 127.0.0.1/32;
real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For;
This way, the $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] will be correctly filled up in PHP fastcgi.
Documentation link - nginx.org
$http_x_forwared_for
might contain multiple ip addresses, where the first one should be the client ip. REMOTE_ADDR
should only be the client ip.
So by using regex in your nginx.conf
, you can set REMOTE_ADDR
to the first ip of $http_x_forwarded_for
like so:
set $realip $remote_addr;
if ($http_x_forwarded_for ~ "^(\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)") {
set $realip $1;
}
fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $realip;
An addition to @fredrik's answer.
It might be better to set $realip
using map
directive:
map $http_x_forwarded_for $realip {
~^(\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+) $1;
default $remote_addr;
}
Then, set fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR
in fastcgi_params
file or a location block:
fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $real_ip;
I solved my own problem, since PHP gets filtered through FastCGI, I simply added a fast CGI param which set REMOTE_ADDR
to the variable http_x_forwarded_for
, so something similar to this:
fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $http_x_forwarded_for;