How do I get the remote address of a client in servlet?

Question

Is there any way that I could get the original IP address of the client coming to the server? I can use request.getRemoteAddr(), but I always seem to get the IP

Answer 1

request.getRemoteAddr() is the way. It appears your proxy changes the source IP. When some proxies do that they add the original IP in some custom http header. Use request.getHeaderNames() and request.getHeaders(name) and print all of them to see if there isn't anything of interest. Like X-CLIENT-IP (made that one up, but they look like this)

Answer 2

Why don't use a more elegant solution like this?

private static final List<String> IP_HEADERS = Arrays.asList("X-Forwarded-For", "Proxy-Client-IP", "WL-Proxy-Client-IP", "HTTP_CLIENT_IP", "HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR");

public static String getClientIpAddr(HttpServletRequest request) {
    return IP_HEADERS.stream()
        .map(request::getHeader)
        .filter(Objects::nonNull)
        .filter(ip -> !ip.isEmpty() && !ip.equalsIgnoreCase("unknown"))
        .findFirst()
        .orElseGet(request::getRemoteAddr);
}

Deduplicate your code!

Answer 3

Why I think we should try to get IP from header 'X-Forwarded-For' first? If you get from request.getRemoteAddr(), it could be client's real ip or last proxy's ip which forwards the request. Thus we can't tell which condition it belongs to. However, if 'X-Forwarded-For' is set into the header, client ip is bound to be the left-most part of what you get from it.

    /**
     * Try to get real ip from request:
     * <ul>
     *     <li>try X-Forwarded-For</li>
     *     <li>try remote address</li>
     * </ul>
     *
     * @param request    request
     * @return real ip or ""
     */
    private String tryGetRealIp(HttpServletRequest request) {
        // X-Forwarded-For: <client>, <proxy1>, <proxy2>
        // If a request goes through multiple proxies, the IP addresses of each successive proxy is listed.
        // This means, the right-most IP address is the IP address of the most recent proxy and
        // the left-most IP address is the IP address of the originating client.
        String forwards = request.getHeader("X-Forwarded-For");
        if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(forwards)) {
            // The left-most IP must be client ip
            String ip = StringUtils.substringBefore(forwards, ",");
            return ip;
        } else if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(request.getRemoteAddr())) {
            // this could be real client ip or last proxy ip which forwards the request
            return request.getRemoteAddr();
        }
        return "";
    }

Answer 4

try this:

public static String getClientIpAddr(HttpServletRequest request) {  
        String ip = request.getHeader("X-Forwarded-For");  
        if (ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {  
            ip = request.getHeader("Proxy-Client-IP");  
        }  
        if (ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {  
            ip = request.getHeader("WL-Proxy-Client-IP");  
        }  
        if (ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {  
            ip = request.getHeader("HTTP_CLIENT_IP");  
        }  
        if (ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {  
            ip = request.getHeader("HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR");  
        }  
        if (ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {  
            ip = request.getRemoteAddr();  
        }  
        return ip;  
    }  

Answer 5

"x-forwarded-for" request header contains the original client IP if using a proxy or a load balancer. But I think not all proxies/lb adds this header.

Here some java code to parse the header: http://www.codereye.com/2010/01/get-real-ip-from-request-in-java.html

If this header is not present then I would proceed as @Bozho suggests

Answer 6

The best solution I've ever used

public String getIpAddr(HttpServletRequest request) {      
   String ip = request.getHeader("x-forwarded-for");      
   if(ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {      
       ip = request.getHeader("Proxy-Client-IP");      
   }      
   if(ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {      
       ip = request.getHeader("WL-Proxy-Client-IP");      
   }      
   if(ip == null || ip.length() == 0 || "unknown".equalsIgnoreCase(ip)) {      
       ip = request.getRemoteAddr();      
   }      
   return ip;      
}