2006-08-16
handy django middleware for shared hosting
on some shared hosting environments like "webfaction":http://webfaction.com they install a reverse proxy solution where you run a apache2 webserver on a custom port, and the main webserver forwards the request through to you.
This works great, and I've been using things like this for years, but the problem you get is that all the requests appear to be from 127.0.0.1 (or the machine which is doing the proxying for you) which isn't the best if you want to record that stuff.
webfaction fixes this in the log files for you automatically, but that doesn't help you if you want to do something with the IP# in django.
enter "FixIP":http://svn.zyons.python-hosting.com/trunk/zilbo/common/utils/middleware/fixip.py it takes the X-Forwarded-For header sent by compliant servers which holds the real IP and makes django work properly.
installation is easy.. just add the routine to your middleware settings ala
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
"django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
"zilbo.common.utils.middleware.fixip.FixIP",
...