Evaluate an HTTP request's client address like Apache httpd's mod_remoteip or Nginx's realip module.

For an event like this...

{
  "remote_addr" => "10.1.1.1"
  "x_fwd_for" => ["1.2.3.4", "10.2.2.2"]
}

...an example configuration looks like so:

filter {
  real_ip {
    remote_address_field => "remote_addr"
    x_forwarded_for_field => "x_fwd_for"
    trusted_networks => [
      "10.0.0.0/8",
      "192.168.0.0/16"
    ]
  }
}

This will evaluate the real client IP, writing it to a new field "realip". For above example event that would be "1.2.3.4"

Often web servers don't provide the value of the X-Forwarded-For header as an array. For ease of use the real_ip plugin provides capabilities to parse such a comma-separated string. To enable this feature, use the x_forwarded_for_is_string option.

For an event like this...

{
  "remote_addr" => "10.1.1.1"
  "x_fwd_for" => "1.2.3.4, 10.2.2.2"
}

...an example configuration looks like so:

filter {
  real_ip {
    remote_address_field => "remote_addr"
    x_forwarded_for_field => "x_fwd_for"
    x_forwarded_for_is_string => true
    trusted_networks => [
      "10.0.0.0/8",
      "192.168.0.0/16"
    ]
  }
}

In case the plugin fails to evaluate the real client IP, it will add a tag to the event, by default _real_ip_lookup_failure. The plugin will fail if one of below it true:

• The remote_address field is absent.
• The remote_address field doesn't contain an IP address.
• The filter is configured using x_forwarded_for_is_string = true, but the x_forwarded_for field isn't a string.
• The x_forwarded_for field contains anything other that IP addresses.

Evaluation behavior

The plugin checks whether the remote_address_field is trusted, if not, it will be written to target_field, and evaluation ends.

Otherwise each IP in the x_forwarded_for_field is checked, from right to left until an untrusted IP is encountered, which will be written to target_field and evaluation ends at that point.

In case remote_address_field and all IPs in x_forwarded_for_field are trusted, the left-most IP of the x_forwarded_for_field is written to target_field.

Configuration

remote_address_field

• type: string
• default: ""

Name of the field that contains the layer 3 remote IP address

x_forwarded_for_field

• type: string
• default: ""

Name of the field that contains the X-Forwarded-For header value

x_forwarded_for_is_string

• type: boolean
• default: false

Specifies whether the x_forwarded_for_field contains a comman-separated string instead of an array.

trusted_networks

• type: array
• default: []

A list of trusted networks addresses. Be sure that you only specify addresses that you trust will correctly manipulate the X-Forwarded-For header.

target_field

• type: string
• default: "real_ip"

Name of the field that this plugin will write the evaluated real client IP address to.

tags_on_failure

• type: array
• default: ["_real_ip_lookup_failure"]

In case of error during evaluation, these tags will be set.