Get IP address of visitors using Flask for Python

I'm making a website where users can log on and download files, using the Flask micro-framework (based on Werkzeug) which uses Python (2.6 in my case).

I need to get the IP address of users when they log on (for logging purposes). Does anyone know how to do this? Surely there is a way to do it with Python?

See the documentation on how to access the Request object and then get from this same Request object, the attribute remote_addr.

Code example

from flask import request
from flask import jsonify

@app.route("/get_my_ip", methods=["GET"])
def get_my_ip():
    return jsonify({'ip': request.remote_addr}), 200

For more information see the Werkzeug documentation.

Proxies can make this a little tricky, make sure to check out ProxyFix (Flask docs) if you are using one. Take a look at request.environ in your particular environment. With nginx I will sometimes do something like this:

from flask import request   
request.environ.get('HTTP_X_REAL_IP', request.remote_addr)   

When proxies, such as nginx, forward addresses, they typically include the original IP somewhere in the request headers.

Update See the flask-security implementation. Again, review the documentation about ProxyFix before implementing. Your solution may vary based on your particular environment.

Actually, what you will find is that when simply getting the following will get you the server's address:

request.remote_addr

If you want the clients IP address, then use the following:

request.environ['REMOTE_ADDR']

The below code always gives the public IP of the client (and not a private IP behind a proxy).

from flask import request

if request.environ.get('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR') is None:
    print(request.environ['REMOTE_ADDR'])
else:
    print(request.environ['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']) # if behind a proxy

The user's IP address can be retrieved using the following snippet:

from flask import request
print(request.remote_addr)

I have Nginx and With below Nginx Config:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name xxxxxx;
    location / {
               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_pass http://x.x.x.x:8000;
        }
}

@tirtha-r solution worked for me

#!flask/bin/python
from flask import Flask, jsonify, request
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/', methods=['GET'])
def get_tasks():
    if request.environ.get('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR') is None:
        return jsonify({'ip': request.environ['REMOTE_ADDR']}), 200
    else:
        return jsonify({'ip': request.environ['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']}), 200

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(debug=True,host='0.0.0.0', port=8000)

My Request and Response:

curl -X GET http://test.api

{
    "ip": "Client Ip......"
}

httpbin.org uses this method:

return jsonify(origin=request.headers.get('X-Forwarded-For', request.remote_addr))

If you use Nginx behind other balancer, for instance AWS Application Balancer, HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR returns list of addresses. It can be fixed like that:

if 'X-Forwarded-For' in request.headers:
    proxy_data = request.headers['X-Forwarded-For']
    ip_list = proxy_data.split(',')
    user_ip = ip_list[0]  # first address in list is User IP
else:
    user_ip = request.remote_addr  # For local development

If You are using Gunicorn and Nginx environment then the following code template works for you.

addr_ip4 = request.remote_addr

This should do the job. It provides the client IP address (remote host).

Note that this code is running on the server side.

from mod_python import apache

req.get_remote_host(apache.REMOTE_NOLOOKUP)

I did not get any of the above work with Google Cloud App Engine. This worked, however

ip = request.headers['X-Appengine-User-Ip']

The proposed request.remote_addr did only return local host ip every time.

Here is the simplest solution, and how to use in production.

from flask import Flask, request
from werkzeug.middleware.proxy_fix import ProxyFix
app = Flask(__name__)
# Set environment from any X-Forwarded-For headers if proxy is configured properly
app.wsgi_app = ProxyFix(app.wsgi_app, x_host=1)

@app.before_request
def before_process():
   ip_address = request.remote_addr

Add include proxy_params to /etc/nginx/sites-available/$project. proxy_params forwards headers to be parsed by ProxyFix

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://unix:$project_dir/gunicorn.sock;
    include proxy_params;
  }

sudo cat /etc/nginx/proxy_params

proxy_set_header Host $http_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;