Configuring varnishd to log client IP addresses in Apache log

Wednesday, 3rd February 2010

I realized today, that because my varnish serves incoming connections to my
apache port a really annoying problem appears.
I mean in my httpd-access.log everytime I get some visit from the Net, the
incoming IP address logged in the Apache log is originating from 127.0.0.0
e.g. (localhost). That’s a real pain in the ass, cause it prevents me from
adequately tracking visitors countries and their networks.
Therefore to fix that and configure varnish to always log my original visitors
IPs to the apache log I had to follow instructions described in.
How can I log the client IP address on the backend? in the Varnish Cache FAQ

Here I will include step by step explanation how I practically implemented
the solution as explained in the FAQ on my FreeBSD.

First I had edit:
/usr/local/etc/varnish/default.vcl
The following is currently my default.vlc file content:
backend default {.host = "127.0.0.1";.port = "8080";}sub vcl_recv {# Add a unique header containing the client addressremove req.http.X-Forwarded-For;set req.http.X-Forwarded-For = client.ip;# [...]}
Next I had to add:
varnishd_config="/usr/local/etc/varnish/default.vcl"
to my /etc/rc.conf
And then modify my:
/usr/local/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
and include:
LogFormat "%{X-Forwarded-For}i %l %u %t "%r" %>s %b "%{Referer}i" "%{User-Agent}i"" varnishcombined
as well as:
CustomLog /var/log/httpd-access.log varnishcombined
to all my VirtualHosts.

Finally it’s required to restart both varnishd and apache
pcfreak# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/varnishd restartpcfreak# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache2 restart

That’s all folks!

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