Node.js: Get client's IP

Question

req.connection.remoteAddress, req.headers['x-forwarded-for'], req.ip, req.ips, what does it all mean?

Is there a straight forward way to simply get the IP address of the client/user-agent making the request to my site in Node.js/Express? I'm not understanding all the proxy stuff or what all the differences between all the properties of the req object. Also, I don't understand what the 'trust proxy' option is for Express.

Could someone give me a straight forward explanation to what the difference is between all of these properties, and answer how I can just simply get the client's IP?

Answer 1

req.ip is the straightforward way to get the client's IP address in Express. You can see the logic it uses (which involves grabbing the first item from the array of proxy addresses req.ips, where that array is constructed from the x-forwarded-for headers) here.