An easy way to get the (real) client IP in PHP

#php #ip #coding

Here we go with another post! 🤘

In the other day I noticed all IPs recorded from visitor on one of my apps were the same, with a very little variation each-other! Aha~ found a bug!

Well, not much! 🙄 After a quick Google search I figured out that those IPs were all from CloudFlare (the CDN provider my apps are behind)! So, CloudFlare replaces the commonly used $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] variable with their own IP.

Fair enough!

So, if you're reading this, the chances are you are facing a similar problem and are looking for a solution ... or perhaps you're just curious, which is fine too. 🤪

Here's a very simple way to get the (real) client IP address. Note that the sintax used here is PHP7+, which means for earlier versions you're gonna need to apply some chained ifs and elses.

<?php

# PHP7+
$clientIP = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'] 
    ?? $_SERVER["HTTP_CF_CONNECTING_IP"] # when behind cloudflare
    ?? $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED'] 
    ?? $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] 
    ?? $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED'] 
    ?? $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR'] 
    ?? $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] 
    ?? '0.0.0.0';

# Earlier than PHP7
$clientIP = '0.0.0.0';

if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])) {
    $clientIP = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
} elseif (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_CF_CONNECTING_IP'])) {
    # when behind cloudflare
    $clientIP = $_SERVER['HTTP_CF_CONNECTING_IP']; 
} elseif (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])) {
    $clientIP = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
} elseif (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED'])) {
    $clientIP = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED'];
} elseif (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR'])) {
    $clientIP = $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR'];
} elseif (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED'])) {
    $clientIP = $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED'];
} elseif (isset($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'])) {
    $clientIP = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
}

echo "My client IP: ", $clientIP;

Happy coding! 👋

Top comments (4)

Arvin • Jun 11 '20

Good post Rogerio :)

I also had to unmask the real IP when I started using Cloudflare.
Since my projects were hosted on my own server and it was more than one project, I decided to use mod_remoteip instead of tweaking the code everywhere, and already get the real IP when I’m using $_SERVER[‘REMOTE_ADDR’].

More on this for those who are in the same situation: support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/ar...

Rogerio Taques • Jun 11 '20

That’s an awesome solution, Arvin! Thanks for sharing. 🙏👏🤩

Riley Jones • Jun 25 '21

I had the same problem. I used the "REMOTE_ADDR" method on my website and it was showing up my cloudflare ip address. I wanted to echo the users ip, so this answer helped me out a ton. I had to create an account just to applaud you. Great job!