How to log the correct Ip having Varnish and Nginx | Linux Today

How to log the correct Ip having Varnish and Nginx

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Jan 30, 2013

When you run a webserver behind a reverse proxy or HTTP accelerator such as Varnish, the webserver access logs will display the IP of the proxy (generally 127.0.0.1) instead of the end user’s IP.
This is a problem when you have a software like webalizer, awstats or similar log file analysis program, because you lose one of the most important information: ???Who is the requestor of a page ????, also having all the access coming from the same IP (127.0.0.1) you lose information such as ???what’s the browsing pattern of visitors ???? ???Is someone trying to do something Nasty ????

In this small how-to I’ll show how to put this information back on your Nginx log files in 2 different ways.

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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