NGINX as proxy of Node.js - node.js

Question

I'm using NODE.js behind NGINX server, this is my Nginx configuration:
upstream example.it {
server 127.0.0.1:8000;
}
server {
server_name www.example.it;
location / {
proxy_pass http://example.it;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}
}
All works good, the requests are correctly sent from nginx to node BUT I saw a problem in the log file generated from Express.js.
The problem is that ALL THE REQUESTS are saved as done from 127.0.0.1, why?
I don't seen any remove hosts (the real ip of who made the request).
Thanks

Answer 1

Assuming you're using Express 3.0, a better way to do this is through the trust proxy setting.
From the Express documentation:
trust proxy Enables reverse proxy support, disabled by default
In order to use it:
app.set('trust proxy', true);
app.use(express.logger('default'));
This has the added advantage of working correctly when you're using a proxy as when you're not (for example in a development environment).

Answer 2

That's correct, as nginx will be the remote host. You need to specify a custom log format to log the X-Forwarded-For header, see the connect logger documentation.
app.use(express.logger(':req[X-Forwarded-For] - - [:date] ":method :url HTTP/:http-version" :status :res[content-length] ":referrer" ":user-agent"'));