How can I get the client's IP address in ASP.NET MVC?

Question

I'm totally new to the ASP.NET MVC stack, and I was wondering what happened to the simple Page object and the Request ServerVariables object?

Basically, I want to to pull out the client PC's IP address, but I fail to understand how the current MVC structure has changed all of this.

As far as I can understand, most of the variable objects has been replaced by the HttpRequest variants.

Anybody care to share some resources? There is really a sea of stuff to learn in the ASP.NET MVC world. :)

For example, I have a static class with this current function. How do I get the same result using ASP.NET MVC?

public static int getCountry(Page page)
{
    return getCountryFromIP(getIPAddress(page));
}

public static string getIPAddress(Page page)
{
    string szRemoteAddr = page.Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"];
    string szXForwardedFor = page.Request.ServerVariables["X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
    string szIP = "";

    if (szXForwardedFor == null)
    {
        szIP = szRemoteAddr;
    }
    else
    {
        szIP = szXForwardedFor;

        if (szIP.IndexOf(",") > 0)
        {
            string [] arIPs = szIP.Split(',');

            foreach (string item in arIPs)
            {
                if (!isPrivateIP(item))
                {
                    return item;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return szIP;
}

And how do I call this function from the controller page?

Overcautious

nuget.org/packages/XFF – Harty

#21155852 – Canotas

Answer 1

The simple answer is to use the HttpRequest.UserHostAddress property.

Example: From within a Controller:

using System;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace Mvc.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : ClientController
    {
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
            string ip = Request.UserHostAddress;

            ...
        }
    }
}

Example: From within a helper class:

using System.Web;

namespace Mvc.Helpers
{
    public static class HelperClass
    {
        public static string GetIPHelper()
        {
            string ip = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress;
            ..
        }
    }
}

BUT, if the request has been passed on by one, or more, proxy servers then the IP address returned by HttpRequest.UserHostAddress property will be the IP address of the last proxy server that relayed the request.

Proxy servers MAY use the de facto standard of placing the client's IP address in the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header. Aside from there is no guarantee that a request has a X-Forwarded-For header, there is also no guarantee that the X-Forwarded-For hasn't been SPOOFED.

---

Original Answer

Request.UserHostAddress

The above code provides the Client's IP address without resorting to looking up a collection. The Request property is available within Controllers (or Views). Therefore instead of passing a Page class to your function you can pass a Request object to get the same result:

public static string getIPAddress(HttpRequestBase request)
{
    string szRemoteAddr = request.UserHostAddress;
    string szXForwardedFor = request.ServerVariables["X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
    string szIP = "";

    if (szXForwardedFor == null)
    {
        szIP = szRemoteAddr;
    }
    else
    {
        szIP = szXForwardedFor;
        if (szIP.IndexOf(",") > 0)
        {
            string [] arIPs = szIP.Split(',');

            foreach (string item in arIPs)
            {
                if (!isPrivateIP(item))
                {
                    return item;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return szIP;
}

Delisle

This is a great answer; I've never seen the X_Forwarded_For header. I read the wiki page about it, but would really be interested why it would be multivalued, or what real world places you've seen it. – Briquette

@makerofthings7: There can be multiple values because multiple proxy servers may be forwarding along the client's HTTP request. If the proxy servers are "well behaved" (as opposed to intentionally anonymous proxies or just badly programmed ones), each will tack on the IP of the previous one in the XFF header. – Jetblack

What does the isPrivateIP method do? – Footlight

isPrivateIP isn't a part of the .NET framework. It is possible that it may return true if the IP address is within a private network range. – Delisle

For local ip addresses check this thread – Adaminah

"::1" means localhost. Just a simple note. – Morley

X-Forwarded-For header is added by firewalls and load balancers that analyse packets and act as a man in the middle. In order to preserve the original user's ip address this header is added so the original information can be retrieved. When the packet is rewritten the new ip address is usually an internal ip and not very useful. – Anagram

I see "::1" and according to @tomg, it is localhost. My question is that: when I publish my website on the internet, will I be able to fetch ip address? Thanks – Nullifidian

@Nullifidian it did for me, but as stated in my answer your network may play a role in what value is returned. – Delisle

The address returned here is the IPv6 or IPv4? – Cori

@Cori The source of Request.UserHostAddress is the Remote Address header from the HTTP request. This can be either IPv4 or IPv6. – Delisle

If you use CloudFlare, they have their own header(CF-CONNECTING-IP) for client IP address. You might want to account for that as well. Take a look – Meneau

Answer 2

Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] should work - either directly in a view or in the controller action method body (Request is a property of Controller class in MVC, not Page).

It is working.. but you have to publish on a real IIS not the virtual one.

Limulus

how do i call this from the controller side? – Overcautious

lol, hey that works, what happen if i wish to put that into a class object as above? and do i still need the page object? – Overcautious

I think you could use HttpContext.Current.Request – Limulus

Adrian's answer (below) is much better - it does not need to do a lookup by magic string. Use Request.UserHostAddress – Diarmuid

This always returns the IP address of the server running my app. Any reason why? – Sumption

But be aware that if your server is behing a load balancer or proxy the ip may be the one of this machine. sometimes the X-Forwarded-For may be set – Reward

It will not work if you are behind a load balancer; public static string UserRealHostAddress(this HttpRequest request, string headerName = "X-FORWARDED-FOR", string seperator = ",", int clientIpIndex = 0) { if (request == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("request"); var rc = request.UserHostAddress; if (request.Headers.AllKeys.Contains(headerName)) { var header = request.Headers[headerName]; var ha = header.Split(new[] {seperator}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); rc = ha[clientIpIndex]; } return rc; } – Harty

it always returns the ip address of server not the client – Though

Answer 3

A lot of the code here was very helpful, but I cleaned it up for my purposes and added some tests. Here's what I ended up with:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Web;

public class RequestHelpers
{
    public static string GetClientIpAddress(HttpRequestBase request)
    {
        try
        {
            var userHostAddress = request.UserHostAddress;

            // Attempt to parse.  If it fails, we catch below and return "0.0.0.0"
            // Could use TryParse instead, but I wanted to catch all exceptions
            IPAddress.Parse(userHostAddress);

            var xForwardedFor = request.ServerVariables["X_FORWARDED_FOR"];

            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(xForwardedFor))
                return userHostAddress;

            // Get a list of public ip addresses in the X_FORWARDED_FOR variable
            var publicForwardingIps = xForwardedFor.Split(',').Where(ip => !IsPrivateIpAddress(ip)).ToList();

            // If we found any, return the last one, otherwise return the user host address
            return publicForwardingIps.Any() ? publicForwardingIps.Last() : userHostAddress;
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            // Always return all zeroes for any failure (my calling code expects it)
            return "0.0.0.0";
        }
    }

    private static bool IsPrivateIpAddress(string ipAddress)
    {
        // http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network
        // Private IP Addresses are: 
        //  24-bit block: 10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255
        //  20-bit block: 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255
        //  16-bit block: 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255
        //  Link-local addresses: 169.254.0.0 through 169.254.255.255 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-local_address)

        var ip = IPAddress.Parse(ipAddress);
        var octets = ip.GetAddressBytes();

        var is24BitBlock = octets[0] == 10;
        if (is24BitBlock) return true; // Return to prevent further processing

        var is20BitBlock = octets[0] == 172 && octets[1] >= 16 && octets[1] <= 31;
        if (is20BitBlock) return true; // Return to prevent further processing

        var is16BitBlock = octets[0] == 192 && octets[1] == 168;
        if (is16BitBlock) return true; // Return to prevent further processing

        var isLinkLocalAddress = octets[0] == 169 && octets[1] == 254;
        return isLinkLocalAddress;
    }
}

And here are some NUnit tests against that code (I'm using Rhino Mocks to mock the HttpRequestBase, which is the M<HttpRequestBase> call below):

using System.Web;
using NUnit.Framework;
using Rhino.Mocks;
using Should;

[TestFixture]
public class HelpersTests : TestBase
{
    HttpRequestBase _httpRequest;

    private const string XForwardedFor = "X_FORWARDED_FOR";
    private const string MalformedIpAddress = "MALFORMED";
    private const string DefaultIpAddress = "0.0.0.0";
    private const string GoogleIpAddress = "74.125.224.224";
    private const string MicrosoftIpAddress = "65.55.58.201";
    private const string Private24Bit = "10.0.0.0";
    private const string Private20Bit = "172.16.0.0";
    private const string Private16Bit = "192.168.0.0";
    private const string PrivateLinkLocal = "169.254.0.0";

    [SetUp]
    public void Setup()
    {
        _httpRequest = M<HttpRequestBase>();
    }

    [TearDown]
    public void Teardown()
    {
        _httpRequest = null;
    }

    [Test]
    public void PublicIpAndNullXForwardedFor_Returns_CorrectIp()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(null);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(GoogleIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void PublicIpAndEmptyXForwardedFor_Returns_CorrectIp()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(string.Empty);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(GoogleIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void MalformedUserHostAddress_Returns_DefaultIpAddress()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(MalformedIpAddress);
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(null);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(DefaultIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void MalformedXForwardedFor_Returns_DefaultIpAddress()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(MalformedIpAddress);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(DefaultIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void SingleValidPublicXForwardedFor_Returns_XForwardedFor()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(MicrosoftIpAddress);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(MicrosoftIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void MultipleValidPublicXForwardedFor_Returns_LastXForwardedFor()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(GoogleIpAddress + "," + MicrosoftIpAddress);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(MicrosoftIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void SinglePrivateXForwardedFor_Returns_UserHostAddress()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(Private24Bit);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(GoogleIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void MultiplePrivateXForwardedFor_Returns_UserHostAddress()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        const string privateIpList = Private24Bit + "," + Private20Bit + "," + Private16Bit + "," + PrivateLinkLocal;
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(privateIpList);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(GoogleIpAddress);
    }

    [Test]
    public void MultiplePublicXForwardedForWithPrivateLast_Returns_LastPublic()
    {
        // Arrange
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.UserHostAddress).Return(GoogleIpAddress);
        const string privateIpList = Private24Bit + "," + Private20Bit + "," + MicrosoftIpAddress + "," + PrivateLinkLocal;
        _httpRequest.Stub(x => x.ServerVariables[XForwardedFor]).Return(privateIpList);

        // Act
        var ip = RequestHelpers.GetClientIpAddress(_httpRequest);

        // Assert
        ip.ShouldEqual(MicrosoftIpAddress);
    }
}

Ingravescent

This always returns the IP address of the server running my application. – Sumption

Should it not return the publicForwardingIps.First() ? – Petrie

@Noah I'm guessing this won't work for IPv6 addresses? – Kleist

Nice solution! Should IPAddress.Parse() also be used on the other IP addresses? – Unplumbed

Answer 4

I had trouble using the above, and I needed the IP address from a controller. I used the following in the end:

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress

Cabasset

From the controller all you had to do was HttpContext.Request.UserHostAddress – Wapiti

Thanks. THat what I needed in a helper class not in a controller or within a view context. This is a nice universal answer. +1 – Assembled

@gander What do you mean? Ho should I write the statement? – Assembled

At the top of the helper class, just write "using System.Web;", then you only need to write "HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress". Just for the lazy programmers, like myself (and explains why Tom's answer and Serj's comment) – Sesquialtera

Answer 5

In a class you might call it like this:

public static string GetIPAddress(HttpRequestBase request) 
{
    string ip;
    try
    {
        ip = request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(ip))
        {
            if (ip.IndexOf(",") > 0)
            {
                string[] ipRange = ip.Split(',');
                int le = ipRange.Length - 1;
                ip = ipRange[le];
            }
        } else
        {
            ip = request.UserHostAddress;
        }
    } catch { ip = null; }

    return ip; 
}

I used this in a razor app with great results.

Briny

Why do you return last address from HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR? Is it the client address not the first one? – Meneau

Client is first one, this code is wrong, you will get last proxy IP with this code – Stribling

Answer 6

How I account for my site being behind an Amazon AWS Elastic Load Balancer (ELB):

public class GetPublicIp {

    /// <summary>
    /// account for possbility of ELB sheilding the public IP address
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static string Execute() {
        try {
            Console.WriteLine(string.Join("|", new List<object> {
                    HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress,
                    HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["X-Forwarded-For"],
                    HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["REMOTE_ADDR"]
                })
            );

            var ip = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress;
            if (HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["X-Forwarded-For"] != null) {
                ip = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["X-Forwarded-For"];
                Console.WriteLine(ip + "|X-Forwarded-For");
            }
            else if (HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["REMOTE_ADDR"] != null) {
                ip = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["REMOTE_ADDR"];
                Console.WriteLine(ip + "|REMOTE_ADDR");
            }
            return ip;
        }
        catch (Exception ex) {
            Console.Error.WriteLine(ex.Message);
        }
        return null;
    }
}

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