nginx proxy to apache - Remote IP not recorded

Question

I have nginx terminating websites and proxying them to Apache with PHP-FPM. I'm trying to record the Clients IP in the apache log, but cannot seem to get this to work.

nginx configuration

server {
  listen         80;
  server_name    www.website.com;

  location ^~ /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
      alias /var/www/dehydrated/;
  }

  location / {
      return         301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
  }
}

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  server_name www.website.com;

  location / {
      proxy_pass http://1.2.3.4:80;
      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_read_timeout 600;
      proxy_buffer_size   128k;
      proxy_buffers   4 256k;
      proxy_busy_buffers_size   256k;
      client_max_body_size 100M;
  }

  location ~ /\.ht {
      deny all;
  }

  ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/www.website.com/privkey.pem;
  ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/www.website.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA';
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
  ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/ssl/dhparams.pem;
}

apache configuration

  <VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerName www.website.com
    ServerAlias origin.www.website.com

    ServerAdmin [email protected]

    DocumentRoot /var/www/www.website.com/trunk

    <IfModule mpm_itk_module>
          AssignUserId www_arenz www_arenz
    </IfModule>
    CustomLog /var/www/www.website.com/apachelogs/www.website.com-access.log combined
    ErrorLog /var/www/www.website.com/apachelogs/www.website.com-error.log

      <FilesMatch "\.php$">
          CGIPassAuth on
          SetHandler "proxy:fcgi://127.0.0.1:9115/
      </FilesMatch>

      RemoteIPHeader X-Real-IP
      RemoteIPTrustedProxy 2.3.4.5/32


  </VirtualHost>

Apache logs always show 2.3.4.5 as the IP address of the client, which is the public IP address of nginx

Answer 1

You could try this solution:

Apache doesn't log remoteIP when RemoteIPHeader X-Forwarded-For is present

# Log format config
LogFormat "%{X-Forwarded-For}i %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" common
SetEnvIf X-Forwarded-For "^.*\..*\..*\..*" forwarded
CustomLog "logs/access_log" common env=forwarded

# Header config
RemoteIPHeader X-Real-IP
RemoteIPHeader X-Client-IP
RemoteIPInternalProxy 192.168.10.10 192.168.10.11

Furthermore, log combined use %h. Setting %a, it tells to Apache to log the client IP as recorded by mod_remoteip (%a) rather than hostname (%h)

For your reference:

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/logs.html#accesslog

https://www.techstacks.com/howto/log-client-ip-and-xforwardedfor-ip-in-apache.html

Hope this can help you

Answer 2

You can also use rpaf apache module instead of RemoteIP directive, set it in httpd.conf

  <IfModule rpaf_module>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
      RPAF_Enable On                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
      RPAF_SetHostName On                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
      RPAF_ProxyIPs 2.3.4.5                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
      RPAF_Header X-Forwarded-For                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
  </IfModule> 

Then just add a new log format like this

LogFormat "%{X-Forwarded-For}i %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" forwarded

CustomLog "/var/log/httpd-access.log" forwarded

Works a treat here with nginx as proxy + apache + php-fpm