This is a library which provides a single function. The function takes as input an IP address and it outputs a hash containing best-guess geographical information (like city, country, latitude, and longitude).
Actually this is only a Ruby binding to a C library which provides this function. Also, you must download a large binary database with all this mapping information. It is kindly provided free of charge by MaxMind.com.
Usage
require 'geoip'
db = GeoIP::City.new('/opt/GeoIP/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat')
result = db.look_up('24.24.24.24')
p result
# => {:city=>"Ithaca",
# :latitude=>42.4277992248535,
# :longitude=>-76.4981994628906,
# :country_code3=>"USA",
# :country_code=>"US",
# :country_name=>"United States",
# :dma_code=>555,
# :area_code=>607,
# :region=>"NY" }
There are arguments to database initializer.
-
The first argument is the filename of the GeoIPCity.dat file
-
The second argument (optional) is to specify how GeoIP should keep the database in memory. There are three possibilities
-
:filesystem-- Read database from filesystem, uses least memory. -
:index-- The most frequently accessed index portion of the database, resulting in faster lookups than :filesystem, but less memory usage than :memory. -
:memory-- (Default.) Load database into memory, faster performance but uses more memory.
-
-
The third argument is boolean and decides whether the system should reload the database if changes are made to the dat file. (You probably don't need this. Default: false.)
For example
GeoIP::City.new(dbfile, :filesystem, true)
require 'geoip'
db = GeoIP::Organization.new('/opt/GeoIP/share/GeoIP/GeoIPOrg.dat')
db.look_up('24.24.24.24')
# => {:name=>"Road Runner"}
The name is the only data available for Organizations.
Some variation of the following should work.
-
Install the GeoCity C library. You can get it from MaxMind. For example, I like to install mine in
/opt/GeoIP, so I do this:tar -zxvf GeoIP-1.4.3.tar.gz cd GeoIP-1.4.3 ./configure --prefix=/opt/GeoIP make && sudo make install
On Mac OS X, you can install using [homebrew](http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew):
brew install geoip
Linux platforms utilizing Apt have several packages available:
geoip-bin
geoip-database
libgeoip-dev
-
Now install the
geoipgemgem install geoip-c -- --with-geoip-dir=/opt/GeoIP
Alternatively, if you installed libgeoip using homebrew:
gem install geoip-c
-
Download the GeoLite City database file in binary format at http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity Maybe this direct link will work. I put this file in
/opt/GeoIP/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat
If you installed libgeoip using homebrew then put it in:
/usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat
If you are a paying customer, you will download the files required below:
[MaxMind Customer Downloads](http://www.maxmind.com/app/download_files)
You will want to get the City Rev1 data file and Organization files at minimum.
-
Use it!
See above for usage details.
-
Might need to set
export ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386"
to be able to compile the gem.
Example:
env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" gem install geoip-c -- --with-geoip-dir=/opt/GeoIP
- You might find this shell script helpful to install the C library.
This iteration of the library is based on the hard work of Ryah Dahl (ry@tinyclouds.org). You can find the original RDocs and Git Repo below:
Special appreciation and thanks belongs to Ry Dahl for his initial work on this library.
Many thanks to our contributors:
- Charles Brian Quinn (seebq)
- Michael Sheakoski
- Silvio Quadri
- Leonardo Almeida (leogalmeida)
Copyright (C) 2007--2009 Ryah Dahl (ry@tinyclouds.org), Matt Todd (mtodd@highgroove.com)
This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License, Version 2, as published by Sam Hocevar. See http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/COPYING for more details.