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Admin Tools

#30154 Couple aspects (and one bug) in Admin Tools and CloudFlare

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
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PHP version
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Admin Tools version
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Latest post by elementotango on Monday, 03 September 2018 02:51 CDT

elementotango
Helll team. I have the lasted Admin Tools Pro installed, and my site uses CloudFlare.

First, a little bug I discovered in Admin Tools.
Under the configuration, option "Use IP workarounds", the system suggests me to "YES" use it. So I switch it to "YES", save, and then it suggests me to set it to "NO" :-) So I set it to "NO" and the story repeats forever. :) So I think there is something wrong.

Now, on to the point. I believe that the correct setup should be "YES", if I use CloudFlare, am I correct ? I believe that this setting is use to make use of the X-Forwarded-For header used by CloudFlare. Can you please confirm ?

Assuming this is right, then I would need to know what is the correct configuration to be set into Admin Tool's
"WAF" -> "WAF Configuration" -> "Exceptions" -> "Never Block these IPs".

Before setting the "IP Workarounds" to "YES", I had put into that line, the list of IPs belonging to CloudFlare. This is because I knew that all of the IPs that the server would have received (from CloudFlare to Apache to Admin Tools) would have been CloudFlare's IPs. And I didn't want any CloudFlare IP to be blocked.

Now, with the Workarounds set to "YES", my (correct?) understanding is that Admin Tools receives the remote IP, not the CloudFlare. But the config field that I mentioned: "Never Block these IPs" is matched internally to the CloudFlare IPs, or to the remote IPs. In other words, it takes effect AFTER Admin Tools has converted the IPs into Remote ones ?

If the answer is YES, then I think I should take out from that line all of the CloudFlare IPs (because Admin Tool will never consider the CloudFlare IP) and put there the IPs of the remote visitors, like if CloudFlare didn't exist. Am I correct ?

Thanks!

Regards Andrea.

https://www.elementotango.it

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
As noted in the documentation, the recommendation is based on a simple JavaScript check which tries to figure out if the IP address your browser sees and the IP address your server sees are the same. This is far from being bulletproof and it may give you the wrong result. Exercise common sense, don't blindly trust that bit of code (in fact, it's marked for removal).

In your case the option should be set to Yes.

And yes, the whole point of that option is for Admin Tools to see the real IP of your visitor, not CloudFlare's.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

elementotango
Hi, thank-you for the confirmation.

So, Do I have to assume that the exception configuration is intended to be filled with IPs that Admin Tool sees _after_ that option has taken effect ? So I need to put there the real visitor IPs, correct ?

Thanks AG

https://www.elementotango.it

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Yes, this is correct.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

elementotango
HI Nicholas, many thanks for confirming. Issue solved.
Kind Regards Andrea.

https://www.elementotango.it

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