Enable use of x-forwarded-for to log browser IP addresses

Problem

JIRA access logging is not able to log client IPs when a proxy is place. Load balancers and reverse proxy devices commonly use the "x-forwarded-for" HTTP header to enable logging of the actual visitory IP address rather than the proxy IP address.

Suggested Solution

Enable configuration of JIRA to log the IP address from the "x-forwarded-for" header to the access logs.

Workaround

Customers have reported that modifying the log4j configuration of JIRA is not a viable workaround. Fortunately, this can be achieved using the access logs that are enabled by default in the Tomcat container that ships with JIRA.

1. Edit the file JIRA_INSTALL_DIR/conf/server.xml
2. Insert this line before the line with "AccessLogValve":

   <Valve
   	className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteIpValve"
   	internalProxies="PROXY_IP_ADDRESS" />
   

   • Escape the "." characters in PROXY_IP_ADDRESS with a backlash. Example: internalProxies="1\.1\.1\.8"
3. Configure AccessLogValve to accept the substituted IP from RemoteIpValve by adding the requestAttributesEnabled attribute to the AccessLogValve:

   <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve"
       requestAttributesEnabled="true"
       ... EXISTING_ATTRIBUTES ...
   />
   

For full details see the Tomcat RemoteIpValve documentation.