Hi,
For my upcoming application I need to find the location of the user.
I am doing this by using the "GeoIp" plugin.
For geoIp I have to find the IP address of the incoming request.
I have written the code to get the IP address:-
"client_ipaddress=request.env["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"] ||
request.remote_addr"
But it is giving me the IP address of the machine. Is it right?
If yes then how the GeoIp will find the location of the machine.
I have tried some online demo's which actually detect the IP address of
the router and depending on that they are finding the location.
Try changing HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR to REMOTE_ADDR. The second one of
those is what will give you the user's IP address. Bear in mind that
if they're behind a proxy, you'll get the IP address of that proxy
instead of theirs, but then again, that's one of the points of their
using a proxy to begin with
I just ran afoul of this when trying to pay my insurance bill. The poorly-written sniffer on the insurance company's national /paybill page looked up my IP, and discovered I'm in New York (I'm actually near Philadelphia) and redirected me to a "sorry, we don't do business in your area" page. My T1 must route through New York, I guess. Luckily Google was able to find the real payment page.
As others have pointed out, this is pretty unreliable. My home-based
IP maps to a location several counties (~60 miles) away from where
I actually live.
And while on the road using a Verizon MiFi card, my location was
identified as somewhere on the East Coast, when I was actually
in a moving vehicle crossing the salt flats in the state of Utah
Depending on your need for accuracy, you may also want to look into
the newer HTML5 location api as a cross-check.
