'Invalid input syntax for type inet' db error in Django app with postgres and Gunicorn+Nginx as reverse proxy

Question

Can you help me decipher this rather esoteric error? Everything\'s fine when I fire up the application, but crashes the moment I try to login.

Answer 1

You are not forwarding proxy IP. Here is my set of forwarded headers I set in my nginx config:

location / {
    proxy_set_header    Host                    $http_host;
    proxy_set_header    User-Agent              $http_user_agent;
    proxy_set_header    X-Real-IP               $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header    X-Forwarded-For         $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header    X-Forwarded-Proto       $scheme;
    proxy_pass          ......;
}

More options in nginx docs - http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_proxy_module.html#proxy_set_header

Then in Django you can do:

user_ip = request.META['HTTP_X_REAL_IP`] or request.META['REMOTE_ADDR']

Note that X-Forwarded-Proto is necessary when using Django with SSL in which case you will also need to configure Django a bit:

SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')

More in Django docs - https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#std:setting-SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER