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Automatically fetching GeoIP "free" databases
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==============================================
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As provided by Maxmind, LLC, the GeoIP library packages possess tools to
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fetch the licensed country/city/organization etc. databases they
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provide, but no such tool to fetch the free Country/City equivalents.
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Additionally, the database version shipped with the base package will be
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the current one at the time a new library release ships. Therefore, the
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shipped database gets less accurate and obsolescent if the library has
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not been updated in some time.
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Therefore these databases can become out-of-date quite quickly unless
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the user manually fetches and replaces them regularly; Maxmind generally
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release updates once a month (on the 1st/2nd day of the month).
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To assist users/administrators in automating retrieval/updating of the
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available free databases, I've provided the following Perl scripts:
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THE SCRIPTS:
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===========
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* fetch-geoipdata.pl - This fetches the base GeoIP.dat.gz file from
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Maxmind's site, replacing the existing /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat file
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appropriately, keeping a dated backup (YYYYMMDD) of the old database file.
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* fetch-geoipdata-city.pl - This works the same way as the above script,
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but on the free City database. It should be noted that a) the City database
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is not part of the standard library package and b) it's fairly large
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(~20mb) and not friendly to users on slow connections.
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File location and URL to fetch from are in the script itself, feel free
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to change these to suit your system and local requirements.
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REQUIREMENTS:
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============
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* A basic Perl installation will do. As long as Carp, File::Copy and the
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LWP modules are available the scripts will be satisfied
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* gzip to decompress the fetched archives. Almost all systems will have
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this as part of the base installation.
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USAGE:
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============
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* Simply put the scripts in your PATH and set them to executable.
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* These are best run from a crontab entry, ideally on the 1st/2nd of the
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month (depending on your timezone. I'm at +1000 - Queensland,
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Australia so that works for me)
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eg
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# Fetch GeoIP databases at 6am on the 2nd of the month
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00 06 2 * * /usr/local/bin/fetch-geoipdata.pl
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You should not need to reload apps using the databases under normal
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circumstances.
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BUGS:
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============
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* Hopefully few if any. More verbose error checking is planned.
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* Please do not send bug reports or issues relating to these scripts to
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Maxmind, LLC - I am in no way employed by or personally/professionally
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related to the company, I'm just a user like you :-)
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* Feel free to send any improvements / bugfixes / ideas to me directly.
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AUTHOR
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============
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Michael Fleming <mfleming@enlartenment.com>
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LICENSE
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============
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This code is licensed under the GPL version 2
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