nginx-x-rid-header is a small module which adds a request-scoped id (uuid) variable that can be used to correlate frontend logging/activity with backend logging/activity.

Currently only supports NGX_LINUX and NGX_DARWIN.

Brian Long (mailto:newobj@gmail.com, mailto:brian@dotspots.com, http://newobj.net)

1. Add --add-module=../git/nginx-x-rid-header to your nginx configure command. On Linux, you should also add --with-ld-opt=-lossp-uuid or whatever flavor of uuid-devel comes with your distribution. Now make and make install.

2. You now have access to a $request_id variable. Suggested use:

   log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" $status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for" - $connection $request_time $upstream_cache_status $request_id'; server { listen 80; server_name example.com; location / { proxy_set_header x-exampledotcom-rid $request_id; proxy_pass http://localhost:8080; } }

3. On your backend (8080), you can pull the request header x-exampledotcom-rid, and log it or tie it to whatever you may like. This makes it really easy to correlate backend exceptions or instrumentation with frontend http request logs.