How to use Nginx secure_link to stream from remote server - php

Question

I would need to get secure link in nginx working where I got the data on another server.
I'm using one server setup with nginx secure_link as follows:
location ~ \.mp4$ {
secure_link $arg_md5,$arg_expires;
secure_link_md5 "$secure_link_expires$uri$remote_addr secretkey";
if ($secure_link = "") {
return 403;
}
if ($secure_link = "0") {
return 410;
}
Using PHP to build the url.
function buildSecureLink($baseUrl, $path, $secret, $ttl, $userIp)
{
$expires = time() + $ttl;
$md5 = md5("$expires$path$userIp $secret", true);
$md5 = base64_encode($md5);
$md5 = strtr($md5, '+/', '-_');
$md5 = str_replace('=', '', $md5);
return $baseUrl . $path . '?md5=' . $md5 . '&expires=' . $expires;
}
$secret = 'secretkey';
$baseUrl = 'domain here';
$path = '/videos' . $video->id . '.mp4';
$ttl = 3600;
$userIp = $_SERVER["HTTP_CF_CONNECTING_IP"]; // since behind cloudflare
$vidurl = buildSecureLink($baseUrl, $path, $secret, $ttl, $userIp);
This works just fine when data is in the same server. But if I try to use secure_link with the same settings in nginx to stream from that remote server (naturally with PHP part updated with correct $baseUrl and path), it simply doesn't work.
Is there any way to use secure_link where the actual data (video in this case) is on another server?

Answer 1

My mistake. Got it working.
Forgot to add the following to the nginx conf which is needed to get the real user ip with Cloudflare: https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170706-How-do-I-restore-original-visitor-IP-with-Nginx-
Compared the nginx headers to figure it out and noticed the IP provided was wrong.