Introduction

What is Network?

The Network module provides secure utilities for extracting the real client IP address from HTTP requests, with built-in support for popular reverse proxies and CDNs like Cloudflare, AWS, Vercel, and more.

Why is this important?

When your application is behind a proxy or CDN, the direct connection IP (req.socket.remoteAddress) will be the proxy's IP, not the client's. Headers like X-Forwarded-For can be spoofed by malicious clients, making IP extraction a security concern.

The Network module solves this by:

• Prioritizing proprietary headers (like CF-Connecting-IP for Cloudflare) that cannot be spoofed
• Safely parsing X-Forwarded-For from right to left, trusting only configured proxies
• Providing utilities to validate and normalize IP addresses

Quick Example

import { Network } from "toolkitify/network";

// Create a network instance for your proxy.
const network = new Network({ proxy: "cloudflare" });

// In your Express middleware.
app.use((req, res, next) => {
    const { ip, trusted } = network.getClientIP(req);
    console.log(`Client IP: ${ip}, Trusted: ${trusted}`);
    next();
});

Supported Proxies