Category: Linux Tutorials

Nginx GeoIP module for country and city geo targeting can be installed in a few easy steps. It brings you a geo targeting layer allowing you to show some parts of your websites, or even split traffic according to the geographical location of the end users. By default, when you install modules from yum, nginx will not come with GeoIP module (This is module: HttpGeoipModule), so we will install from source and the active the module. This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple.

In this tutorial we will show you how to install and configuration of Nginx With GeoIP Module on your Linux server.

Install Nginx With GeoIP Module

Step 1. First install require package for compiling:

 yum install gcc-c++ pre pcre-devel zlib zlib-devel -y

Step 2. Download the latest stable version of Nginx from here and build it with GeoIP module support.

## cd /opt/nginx/
## wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.6.2.tar.gz
## tar -zxf nginx-1.6.2.tar.gz
## cd nginx-1.6.2/
## ./configure
--prefix=/etc/nginx \
--sbin-path=/etc/nginx/sbin/nginx \
--conf-path=/etc/nginx/conf/nginx.conf \
--error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log \
--http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log \
--pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid \
--lock-path=/var/run/ninx.lock \
--user=nobody \
--with-http_geoip_module \
--with-http_gzip_static_module \
--with-http_secure_link_module \
--without-mail_pop3_module \
--without-mail_imap_module \
--without-mail_smtp_module \
--without-http_ssi_module

## make
## make install

Step 3. Create an init script for Nginx.

get -O /etc/init.d/nginx https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Fleshgrinder/nginx-sysvinit-script/master/nginx
chmod 0755 /etc/init.d/nginx
chown root:root /etc/init.d/nginx

Step 4. Finally, start Nginx.

 service nginx start

Step 5. Install GeoIP library via yum

# For CentOS 6 – 64-bit

rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm 

# yum install geoip geoip-devel -y

After successful installation, the library will be stored in: /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat
For the latest updates can be downloaded at: http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCountry/GeoIP.dat.gz

Configure Nginx

• Configure on main file:

#nano /etc/nginx/conf/nginx.conf

http {
[...]
geoip_country /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat;
map $geoip_country_code $allowed_country {
default yes;
CN no;
}
[...]
}

• Configure nginx virtualhost:

#nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/yourdomain.conf

server {
[...]
if ($allowed_country = no) {
return 444;
# # This means the server will stop processing, returns error 444 (The connection was reset),
# # And ignore always sending the response header.
# # Replace 444 by 403 if you want
}
[...]
}

The above configuration will accept all IP and banned only from China IP (CN). About Code of the country in GeoIP database you can refer here: http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/codes/iso3166/

Congratulation’s! You have successfully installed Nginx With GeoIP Module. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Nginx With GeoIP Module on Linux system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Nginx web site.

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