How do I get user IP address in django?

Question

How do I get user's IP in django?

I have a view like this:

# Create your views
from django.contrib.gis.utils import GeoIP
from django.template import  RequestContext
from django.shortcuts import render_to_response


def home(request):
  g = GeoIP()
  client_ip = request.META['REMOTE_ADDR']
  lat,long = g.lat_lon(client_ip)
  return render_to_response('home_page_tmp.html',locals())

But I get this error:

KeyError at /mypage/
    'REMOTE_ADDR'
    Request Method: GET
    Request URL:    http://mywebsite.com/mypage/
    Django Version: 1.2.4
    Exception Type: KeyError
    Exception Value:    
    'REMOTE_ADDR'
    Exception Location: /mysite/homepage/views.py in home, line 9
    Python Executable:  /usr/bin/python
    Python Version: 2.6.6
    Python Path:    ['/mysite', '/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/flup-1.0.2-py2.6.egg', '/usr/lib/python2.6', '/usr/lib/python2.6/plat-linux2', '/usr/lib/python2.6/lib-tk', '/usr/lib/python2.6/lib-old', '/usr/lib/python2.6/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6']
    Server time:    Sun, 2 Jan 2011 20:42:50 -0600

Answer 1

In my case none of above works, so I have to check uwsgi + django source code and pass static param in nginx and see why/how, and below is what I have found.

Env info:
python version: 2.7.5
Django version: (1, 6, 6, 'final', 0)
nginx version: nginx/1.6.0
uwsgi: 2.0.7

Env setting info:
nginx as reverse proxy listening at port 80 uwsgi as upstream unix socket, will response to the request eventually

Django config info:

USE_X_FORWARDED_HOST = True # with or without this line does not matter

nginx config:

uwsgi_param      X-Real-IP              $remote_addr;
// uwsgi_param   X-Forwarded-For        $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
// uwsgi_param   HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR   $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;

// hardcode for testing
uwsgi_param      X-Forwarded-For        "10.10.10.10";
uwsgi_param      HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR   "20.20.20.20";

getting all the params in django app:

X-Forwarded-For :       10.10.10.10
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR :  20.20.20.20

Conclusion:

So basically, you have to specify exactly the same field/param name in nginx, and use request.META[field/param] in django app.

And now you can decide whether to add a middleware (interceptor) or just parse HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR in certain views.

Answer 2

Alexander's answer is great, but lacks the handling of proxies that sometimes return multiple IP's in the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR header.

The real IP is usually at the end of the list, as explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Forwarded-For

The solution is a simple modification of Alexander's code:

def get_client_ip(request):
    x_forwarded_for = request.META.get('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR')
    if x_forwarded_for:
        ip = x_forwarded_for.split(',')[-1].strip()
    else:
        ip = request.META.get('REMOTE_ADDR')
    return ip

Answer 3

The reason the functionality was removed from Django originally was that the header cannot ultimately be trusted. The reason is that it is easy to spoof. For example the recommended way to configure an nginx reverse proxy is to:

add_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
add_header X-Real-Ip       $remote_addr;

When you do:

curl -H 'X-Forwarded-For: 8.8.8.8, 192.168.1.2' http://192.168.1.3/

Your nginx in myhost.com will send onwards:

X-Forwarded-For: 8.8.8.8, 192.168.1.2, 192.168.1.3

The X-Real-IP will be the IP of the first previous proxy if you follow the instructions blindly.

In case trusting who your users are is an issue, you could try something like django-xff: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-xff/

Answer 4

I was also missing proxy in above answer. I used get_ip_address_from_request from django_easy_timezones.

from easy_timezones.utils import get_ip_address_from_request, is_valid_ip, is_local_ip
ip = get_ip_address_from_request(request)
try:
    if is_valid_ip(ip):
        geoip_record = IpRange.objects.by_ip(ip)
except IpRange.DoesNotExist:
    return None

And here is method get_ip_address_from_request, IPv4 and IPv6 ready:

def get_ip_address_from_request(request):
    """ Makes the best attempt to get the client's real IP or return the loopback """
    PRIVATE_IPS_PREFIX = ('10.', '172.', '192.', '127.')
    ip_address = ''
    x_forwarded_for = request.META.get('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR', '')
    if x_forwarded_for and ',' not in x_forwarded_for:
        if not x_forwarded_for.startswith(PRIVATE_IPS_PREFIX) and is_valid_ip(x_forwarded_for):
            ip_address = x_forwarded_for.strip()
    else:
        ips = [ip.strip() for ip in x_forwarded_for.split(',')]
        for ip in ips:
            if ip.startswith(PRIVATE_IPS_PREFIX):
                continue
            elif not is_valid_ip(ip):
                continue
            else:
                ip_address = ip
                break
    if not ip_address:
        x_real_ip = request.META.get('HTTP_X_REAL_IP', '')
        if x_real_ip:
            if not x_real_ip.startswith(PRIVATE_IPS_PREFIX) and is_valid_ip(x_real_ip):
                ip_address = x_real_ip.strip()
    if not ip_address:
        remote_addr = request.META.get('REMOTE_ADDR', '')
        if remote_addr:
            if not remote_addr.startswith(PRIVATE_IPS_PREFIX) and is_valid_ip(remote_addr):
                ip_address = remote_addr.strip()
    if not ip_address:
        ip_address = '127.0.0.1'
    return ip_address

Answer 5

The most easy solution to this is:

from ipaddress import ip_address

and then use it like:

print(get_client_ip(request))

Answer 6

here is a short one liner to accomplish this:

request.META.get('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR', request.META.get('REMOTE_ADDR', '')).split(',')[-1].strip()