On an existing nginx reverse proxy, I need to pass the client IP to a server (from nginx to the frontend served in NG-Engine, and from this to the backend), I tried a lot of sites, but the server is just receiving 127.0.0.1.
Extra info (added after Michael Hampton question), our Virtual Machines infrastructure:
- Client browser (another VM or remote desktop)
- (VM1) nginx reverse proxy (it works, HTTPS layer I added at least)
- (VM1) NgEngine serving the homemade frontend
- (VM1) RESTful API served by a Java/Spring homemade backend (running in IntelliJ idea)
- (VM2..x) other servers feeding the backend with data (out of the question)
I checked doc, tried here (including removing the X-Real-IP header, as they suggest in this other question).
I tried also to add:
set_real_ip_from 127.0.0.1;
real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For
My nginx has real_ip module (output of nginx -V below), and this is my nginx.conf…
What I am doing wrong?
user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 768;
# multi_accept on;
}
http {
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
types_hash_max_size 2048;
# server_tokens off;
server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
# server_name_in_redirect off;
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
gzip on;
gzip_disable "msie6";
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name test-server;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.key;
add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains; preload" always;
add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
# allow nginx to start regardless of upstream endpoint state by using intermediary variable
set $UPSTREAM_SERVICE 10.10.10.15:8080;
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:6789
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_buffering off;
proxy_buffer_size 128k;
proxy_busy_buffers_size 256k;
proxy_buffers 4 256k;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection $http_connection;
}
}
}
Output of nginx -V:
nginx version: nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu)
built with OpenSSL 1.1.0g 2 Nov 2017
TLS SNI support enabled
configure arguments: --with-cc-opt='-g -O2 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -fPIC -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2' --with-ld-opt='-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -fPIC' --prefix=/usr/share/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock --pid-path=/run/nginx.pid --modules-path=/usr/lib/nginx/modules --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/scgi --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/uwsgi --with-debug --with-pcre-jit --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_auth_request_module --with-http_v2_module --with-http_dav_module --with-http_slice_module --with-threads --with-http_addition_module --with-http_flv_module --with-http_geoip_module=dynamic --with-http_gunzip_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_image_filter_module=dynamic --with-http_mp4_module --with-http_perl_module=dynamic --with-http_random_index_module --with-http_secure_link_module --with-http_sub_module --with-http_xslt_module=dynamic --with-mail=dynamic --with-mail_ssl_module --with-stream=dynamic --with-stream_ssl_module --with-stream_ssl_preread_module --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-headers-more-filter --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-auth-pam --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-cache-purge --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-dav-ext --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-ndk --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-echo --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-fancyindex --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/nchan --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-lua --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/rtmp --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-uploadprogress --add-dy
namic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-upstream-fair --add-dynamic-module=/build/nginx-mcUg8N/nginx-1.14.0/debian/modules/http-subs-filter
Thank you very much and best regards
Best Answer
As a reverse proxy, your back-end server will always receive connection from your nginx process, which, depends on your
*_passdirective, will contain your nginx's IP address (in your case, 127.0.0.1).As such, you may not fetch client IP by checking client address, you'll only get your front-end server IP address.
In reverse proxy and load balancing, uh, business, we have several ways to extract client IP from reverse proxy on the backend:
X-Forwarded-ForHTTP request header, contains all the proxies passed and requesting client IP address(es).ForwardedHTTP request header, is a new standardized way to replace X-Forwarded-For, also contains IP addresses for all proxies passed and requesting client.X-Real-IPHTTP request header, or any custom HTTP request header, to arbitrarily contain client IP address.Check your back-end application if they support any of these headers.
ngx_http_realip_module isn't used for this case. It is used if nginx is behind a proxy so that it could validate and fetch real client IP address and store it in a specified variable.