Wrong IP-Address with nginx + Unicorn + rails - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I check the ip-address in the controller with
request.env['REMOTE_ADDR']
this works fine in my test environment.
But on the production server with nginx + unicorn I always get 127.0.0.1.
This is my nginx config for the site:
upstream unicorn {
server unix:/tmp/unicorn.urlshorter.sock fail_timeout=0;
}
server {
listen 80 default deferred;
# server_name example.com;
root /home/deployer/apps/urlshorter/current/public;
location ^~ /assets/ {
gzip_static on;
expires max;
add_header Cache-Control public;
}
try_files $uri/index.html $uri #unicorn;
location #unicorn {
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_pass http://unicorn;
}
error_page 500 502 503 504 /500.html;
client_max_body_size 4G;
keepalive_timeout 10;
}

Answer 1

I had trouble with this too; I found this question, but the other answer didn't help me.
I looked at Rails 3.2.8's implementation of Rack::Request#ip to see how it decided what to say; to get it to use an address passed via the environment without filtering out addresses from my local network (it's trying to filter out intermediate proxies, but that's not what I wanted), I had to set the HTTP_CLIENT_IP from my nginx proxy configuration block in addition to what you've got above (X-Forwarded-For has to be there too for this to work!):
proxy_set_header CLIENT_IP $remote_addr;

Answer 2

If you use request.remote_addr you'll get the of your Nginx proxy.
To get the real IP address of your user, you can use request.remote_ip.
According to Rails' source code, it checks for various http headers to give you the most relevant one : in Rails 3.2 or Rails 4.0.0.beta1

Answer 3

The answer is in your config file :) The following should do what you want:
real_ip = request.headers["X-Real-IP"]
more here: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionDispatch/Request.html#method-i-headers
UPDATE: The proper answer is here in another Q:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/4465588
or in this thread:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/15883610
spoiler:
use request.remote_ip

Answer 4

For ELB - nginx - rails you want to follow this guide:
http://engineering.blopboard.com/resolving-real-client-ip-with-amazon-elb-nginx-and-php-fpm
See:
server {
listen 443 ssl spdy proxy_protocol;
set_real_ip_from 10.0.0.0/8;
real_ip_header proxy_protocol;
location /xxx {
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_pass <api-endpoint>;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-By $server_addr:$server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header CLIENT_IP $remote_addr;
proxy_pass_request_headers on;
}
...

Answer 5

The proxy_set_header CLIENT_IP $remote_addr; didn't work for me. Here's what did..
The solution I found after reviewing the actiondispatch code remote_ip.rb source. Now I get proper IP in my devise/warden processes as well as any other routine I'm looking at request.remote_ip
My config...
Ruby 2.2.1 - Rails 4.2.1 - NGINX v1.8.0 - Unicorn v4.9.0 - Devise v3.4.1
nginx.conf
HTTP_CLIENT_IP vs CLIENT_IP
location #unicorn {
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header HTTP_CLIENT_IP $remote_addr; <-----
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_pass http://unicorn;
}
Source actionpack-4.2.1/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/remote_ip.rb
Line 114:
client_ips = ips_from('HTTP_CLIENT_IP').reverse
Line 126:
"HTTP_CLIENT_IP=#{#env['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'].inspect} " +