Fix rate limiting behind reverse proxy (trust proxy headers)

Critical Fix:
- Added app.set('trust proxy', true) to server-http.js
- Fixes ValidationError about X-Forwarded-For headers
- Allows rate limiting to work correctly on Render/Heroku/etc

Problem:
- Without trust proxy, Express doesn't recognize real client IPs
- All users appear to have the same IP (the proxy's IP)
- Rate limiting applied to ALL users as a single entity
- One user hitting limit blocks everyone

Solution:
- Trust X-Forwarded-For headers from reverse proxies
- Each user now has their own rate limit bucket
- Rate limiting works as designed (50 req/min per IP)

Documentation:
- Added troubleshooting section in DEPLOYMENT.md
- Explains the error and impact
- Shows how to verify the fix

This is required for any deployment behind a reverse proxy
(Render, Heroku, AWS ELB, nginx, etc.)

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Lee Hanken
2025-10-26 11:32:42 +00:00
parent caa022c4d8
commit d37a9aca4e
2 changed files with 25 additions and 0 deletions

View File

@@ -415,6 +415,27 @@ If legitimate users hit rate limits:
- Implement authentication for higher limits - Implement authentication for higher limits
- Consider using API keys - Consider using API keys
### Rate Limiting Not Working (All Users Blocked Together)
**Error in logs**:
```
ValidationError: The 'X-Forwarded-For' header is set but the Express 'trust proxy' setting is false
```
**Cause**: Server is behind a reverse proxy (Render, Heroku, etc.) but Express doesn't trust proxy headers.
**Impact**: All users appear to have the same IP address, so they share one rate limit bucket. When one user hits the limit, everyone gets blocked.
**Solution**: Already fixed in `server-http.js` with:
```javascript
app.set('trust proxy', true);
```
If you still see this error:
1. Pull latest code from repository
2. Redeploy to your hosting platform
3. Verify logs no longer show the ValidationError
### Connection Timeouts ### Connection Timeouts
If requests timeout: If requests timeout:

View File

@@ -661,6 +661,10 @@ ${match.context}
// Create Express app // Create Express app
const app = express(); const app = express();
// Trust proxy headers (required for Render, Heroku, etc.)
// This allows rate limiting to work correctly behind reverse proxies
app.set('trust proxy', true);
// Enable CORS // Enable CORS
app.use(cors()); app.use(cors());