What is the most accurate way to retrieve a user's correct IP address in PHP?

Here is a shorter, cleaner way to get the IP address:

function get_ip_address(){
    foreach (array('HTTP_CLIENT_IP', 'HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR', 'HTTP_X_FORWARDED', 'HTTP_X_CLUSTER_CLIENT_IP', 'HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR', 'HTTP_FORWARDED', 'REMOTE_ADDR') as $key){
        if (array_key_exists($key, $_SERVER) === true){
            foreach (explode(',', $_SERVER[$key]) as $ip){
                $ip = trim($ip); // just to be safe

                if (filter_var($ip, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP, FILTER_FLAG_NO_PRIV_RANGE | FILTER_FLAG_NO_RES_RANGE) !== false){
                    return $ip;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

---

Your code seems to be pretty complete already, I cannot see any possible bugs in it (aside from the usual IP caveats), I would change the validate_ip() function to rely on the filter extension though:

public function validate_ip($ip)
{
    if (filter_var($ip, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP, FILTER_FLAG_NO_PRIV_RANGE | FILTER_FLAG_NO_RES_RANGE) === false)
    {
        return false;
    }

    self::$ip = sprintf('%u', ip2long($ip)); // you seem to want this

    return true;
}

Also your HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR snippet can be simplified from this:

// check for IPs passing through proxies
if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']))
{
    // check if multiple ips exist in var
    if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'], ',') !== false)
    {
        $iplist = explode(',', $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']);
        
        foreach ($iplist as $ip)
        {
            if ($this->validate_ip($ip))
                return $ip;
        }
    }
    
    else
    {
        if ($this->validate_ip($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']))
            return $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
    }
}

To this:

// check for IPs passing through proxies
if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']))
{
    $iplist = explode(',', $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']);
        
    foreach ($iplist as $ip)
    {
        if ($this->validate_ip($ip))
            return $ip;
    }
}

You may also want to validate IPv6 addresses.

Even then however, getting a user's real IP address is going to be unreliable. All they need to do is use an anonymous proxy server (one that doesn't honor the headers for http_x_forwarded_for, http_forwarded, etc) and all you get is their proxy server's IP address.

You can then see if there is a list of proxy server IP addresses that are anonymous, but there is no way to be sure that is 100% accurate as well and the most it'd do is let you know it is a proxy server. And if someone is being clever, they can spoof headers for HTTP forwards.

Let's say I don't like the local college. I figure out what IP addresses they registered, and get their IP address banned on your site by doing bad things, because I figure out you honor the HTTP forwards. The list is endless.

Then there is, as you guessed, internal IP addresses such as the college network I metioned before. A lot use a 10.x.x.x format. So all you would know is that it was forwarded for a shared network.

Then I won't start much into it, but dynamic IP addresses are the way of broadband anymore. So. Even if you get a user IP address, expect it to change in 2 - 3 months, at the longest.

We use:

/**
 * Get the customer's IP address.
 *
 * @return string
 */
public function getIpAddress() {
    if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])) {
        return $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
    } else if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])) {
        $ips = explode(',', $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']);
        return trim($ips[count($ips) - 1]);
    } else {
        return $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
    }
}

The explode on HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR is because of weird issues we had detecting IP addresses when Squid was used.