Nginx – pfSense + NAT and nginx – real IP not shown in logs

ipnat;nginxpfsenseport-forwarding

My current setup includes a pfSense firewall which port forwards public WAN traffic to a NAT internal IP.

Example:

  • 104.12.134.12:80 (WAN IP) port forwards all traffic to 192.168.1.104:80

This is working as expected, traffic is forwarded on correctly. The issue I'm having is I see the local IP (i.e. pfSense router IP, in this case, 192.168.1.1) within Nginx logs.

I've searched and lots of articles suggest using real_ip module, and setting X-Forwarded-For header, but this doesn't work.

Notes:

  • The IP of my router differs from the IPs I'm port forwarding (this is intentional).
  • I don't own 104.12.134.12, this is just an example.

Best Answer

You should use the load balancing capability of pfsense to do this (as described here : https://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-use-pfsense-to-load-balance-your-web-servers) instead of a NATING Rule.

You can define only one loadbalancing pool with only one server in it.

Besides, it will allow you to add nginx servers later If you need it.

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