Forum Discussion

JimmyJose's avatar
JimmyJose
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Sep 18, 2016

Appending/Including all IP addresses 'en route' within "X-Forwarded-for"

Hello,   We have our internal website published through our LTM. Users' traffic traverse the WAF [non-F5] before reaching the LTM.   Both WAF and LTM are configured to insert the X-Forwarded-fo...
application delivery
irules
LTM
Kai_Wilke's avatar
Kai_Wilke
Icon for MVP rankMVP
Sep 19, 2016

Hi Jimmy,

to consolidate multiple occourences of 

X-Forwarded-For
headers, you may try the iRule below...

when HTTP_REQUEST {
    if { [set x_forwarded [HTTP::header values "X-Forwarded-For"]] ne "" } then {
        HTTP::header remove "X-Forwarded-For" 
        HTTP::header insert "X-Forwarded-For" "[join $x_forwarded ", "], [getfield [IP::client_addr] "%" 1]"
    } else {
        HTTP::header insert "X-Forwarded-For" "[getfield [IP::client_addr] "%" 1]"
    }
}

The iRule will collect any existing 

X-Forwarded-For
header value, then remove any existing 
X-Forwarded-For
header and finally create a new one with the collected values + the current "X-Forwarded-For" value. E.g.:

Incomming HTTP request headers

GET / HTTP/1.1  
Host: site.domain.de  
... 
X-Forwarded-For: 1.1.1.1  
X-Forwarded-For: 2.2.2.2, 3.3.3.3
X-Forwarded-For: 4.4.4.4

Outgoing HTTP request headers

GET / HTTP/1.1  
Host: site.domain.de  
... 
X-Forwarded-For: 1.1.1.1, 2.2.2.2, 3.3.3.3, 4.4.4.4, 5.5.5.5

Note: Make sure to disable the automatic X-Forwarded-For insert option in your HTTP profile. The insert will be already handled by this iRule...

Cheers, Kai