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Security => CSF Firewall => Topic started by: idovecer on June 09, 2026, 10:50:10 AM

Title: CWP / Nginx Reverse Proxy: cwpsrv not logging authentication failures
Post by: idovecer on June 09, 2026, 10:50:10 AM

Hi everyone,

I’m running into a serious issue with brute-force protection on my AlmaLinux server after moving to an Nginx -> Apache -> PHP-FPM stack on CWP.

The problem is that all access requests to my panel subdomains (e.g., cpanel.some-domain.com) are logged in /usr/local/cwpsrv/logs/access_log as 127.0.0.1. Since Nginx acts as a reverse proxy, the backend (cwpsrv) sees the localhost IP instead of the client's real IP. Consequently, CSF/LFD cannot detect or block brute-force attacks, as it cannot see the actual source of the requests.

Key Technical Details:

Access Logs: Even with incorrect passwords, the requests return a 200 OK status, not a 401/403 error.

Example: 127.0.0.1 - - [09/Jun/2026:09:34:27 +0200] "POST /login/index.php?acc=validate HTTP/1.0" 200 70 ...

Missing Error Logs: I noticed that there are no entries in any error logs (including /var/log/secure or cwpsrv error logs) when a login fails. It seems cwpsrv handles authentication internally without triggering standard system-level auth logs.

Inconsistency: Regular websites hosted on the same server have their logs correctly populated with real client IPs (so Nginx is likely forwarding headers like X-Forwarded-For correctly).

My Questions:

How can I make cwpsrv log the real client IP (passed via X-Forwarded-For) so that LFD can parse it?

Since the failed login returns a 200 OK status, does LFD have a mechanism to parse the application-level response or "validate" string to trigger a block, even if the IP is hidden behind a proxy?

Is there a configuration in cwpsrv to enable "Real IP" support similar to how Apache/Nginx handle it?

Any insight on how to restore brute-force protection for the panel subdomains would be greatly appreciated!

Title: Re: CWP / Nginx Reverse Proxy: cwpsrv not logging authentication failures
Post by: cyberspace on June 09, 2026, 06:59:09 PM

Quote

Is there a configuration in cwpsrv to enable "Real IP" support similar to how Apache/Nginx handle it?

In my option you need to recompile nginx (cwpsrv) used by CWP to handle the requests coming to the panel to add the nginx module called "
ngx_http_realip_module":
https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_realip_module.html

Update the config file:
/usr/local/cwpsrv/conf.d/users.conf
to get the IP from the header X-Forwarded-For or X-Real-IP.


Here is the "configuration" used to compile cwpsrv:

Code: [Select]

--prefix=/usr/local/cwpsrv --sbin-path=/usr/local/cwpsrv/bin/cwpsrv --conf-path=/usr/local/cwpsrv/conf/cwpsrv.conf --pid-path=/usr/local/cwpsrv/var/run/nginx.pid --error-log-path=/usr/local/cwpsrv/logs/error_log --http-log-path=/usr/local/cwpsrv/logs/access_log --user=root --group=root --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-file-aio --with-http_secure_link_module --with-http_ssl_module --add-module=src/misc/ngx_http_auth_pam_module

Please note you make the changes on your own risk.