C# – How to get the client’s IP address in ASP.NET MVC

asp.net-mvcc

I'm totally new to the ASP.NET MVC stack, and I was wondering what happened to the simple Page object and the Request ServerVariables object?

Basically, I want to to pull out the client PC's IP address, but I fail to understand how the current MVC structure has changed all of this.

As far as I can understand, most of the variable objects has been replaced by the HttpRequest variants.

Anybody care to share some resources? There is really a sea of stuff to learn in the ASP.NET MVC world. 🙂

For example, I have a static class with this current function. How do I get the same result using ASP.NET MVC?

public static int getCountry(Page page)
{
    return getCountryFromIP(getIPAddress(page));
}

public static string getIPAddress(Page page)
{
    string szRemoteAddr = page.Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"];
    string szXForwardedFor = page.Request.ServerVariables["X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
    string szIP = "";

    if (szXForwardedFor == null)
    {
        szIP = szRemoteAddr;
    }
    else
    {
        szIP = szXForwardedFor;

        if (szIP.IndexOf(",") > 0)
        {
            string [] arIPs = szIP.Split(',');

            foreach (string item in arIPs)
            {
                if (!isPrivateIP(item))
                {
                    return item;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return szIP;
}

And how do I call this function from the controller page?

Best Answer

The simple answer is to use the HttpRequest.UserHostAddress property.

Example: From within a Controller:

using System;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace Mvc.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : ClientController
    {
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
            string ip = Request.UserHostAddress;

            ...
        }
    }
}

Example: From within a helper class:

using System.Web;

namespace Mvc.Helpers
{
    public static class HelperClass
    {
        public static string GetIPHelper()
        {
            string ip = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress;
            ..
        }
    }
}

BUT, if the request has been passed on by one, or more, proxy servers then the IP address returned by HttpRequest.UserHostAddress property will be the IP address of the last proxy server that relayed the request.

Proxy servers MAY use the de facto standard of placing the client's IP address in the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header. Aside from there is no guarantee that a request has a X-Forwarded-For header, there is also no guarantee that the X-Forwarded-For hasn't been SPOOFED.

Original Answer

Request.UserHostAddress

The above code provides the Client's IP address without resorting to looking up a collection. The Request property is available within Controllers (or Views). Therefore instead of passing a Page class to your function you can pass a Request object to get the same result:

public static string getIPAddress(HttpRequestBase request)
{
    string szRemoteAddr = request.UserHostAddress;
    string szXForwardedFor = request.ServerVariables["X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
    string szIP = "";

    if (szXForwardedFor == null)
    {
        szIP = szRemoteAddr;
    }
    else
    {
        szIP = szXForwardedFor;
        if (szIP.IndexOf(",") > 0)
        {
            string [] arIPs = szIP.Split(',');

            foreach (string item in arIPs)
            {
                if (!isPrivateIP(item))
                {
                    return item;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return szIP;
}
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