Getting a user country name from originating IP address with Ruby on Rails

user_227171 0
Viewed 27976

I want to extract a user country name from visitors' IP addresses.

I could get the IP address with remote_ip. But what could be the easiest way to get the country name?

It doesn't have to be super accurate. Any ruby library (gem or plugin) to do this?

I want an simple and easy solution for this.

ip-geolocation ruby-on-rails
11 Answers

You can use geoip gem.

environment.rb

config.gem 'geoip'

Download GeoIP.dat.gz from http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecountry. unzip the file. The below assumes under #{RAILS_ROOT}/db dir.

@geoip ||= GeoIP.new("#{RAILS_ROOT}/db/GeoIP.dat")    
remote_ip = request.remote_ip 
if remote_ip != "127.0.0.1" #todo: check for other local addresses or set default value
  location_location = @geoip.country(remote_ip)
  if location_location != nil     
    @model.country = location_location[2]
  end
end
user_2231960

The simplest is to use an existing web service for this.

There are plugins that let you do much more, including making your models geolocation-aware (geokit-rails) automatically, but if all you need is a country code for example, simply sending an HTTP Get to http://api.hostip.info/country.php (there are other services but this one does not require an API key) will return it, e.g. :

Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse('http://api.hostip.info/country.php'))
=> US


Or polling http://api.hostip.info/ will return a full XML response with city, latitude, longitude, etc.

Be aware that the results you get are not 100% accurate. For example, right now I'm in France but reported as in Germany. This will be the case for pretty much any IP-based service.

user_355010

The geoip gem no longer works with the new MaxMind databases. There is a new gem that does this, MaxMind-DB-Reader-ruby.

Simply download the City or Country binary, gzipped databases from MaxMind, unzip, and use the following sort of code:

require 'maxmind/db'

reader = MaxMind::DB.new('GeoIP2-City.mmdb', mode: MaxMind::DB::MODE_MEMORY)

# you probably want to replace 1.1.1.1 with  request.remote_ip
# or request.env['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']
ip_addr = '1.1.1.1'
record = reader.get(ip_addr)
if record.nil?
  puts '#{ip_addr} was not found in the database'
else
  puts record['country']['iso_code']
  puts record['country']['names']['en']
end

reader.close

Adapt based on your needs. I created a method in an initializer which I can call as necessary.

Artelius_319450

You can try Yandex locator gem, service returns longitude, latitude and precision.

conn = YandexLocator::Client.new
result = conn.lookup(ip: "109.252.52.39")
# => {"position"=>{"altitude"=>0.0, "altitude_precision"=>30.0, "latitude"=>55.75395965576172, "longitude"=>37.62039184570312, "precision"=>100000.0, "type"=>"ip"}}
user_16793490

Here's a Ruby example calling the ipdata.co API.

It's fast and has reliable performance thanks to having 10 global endpoints each able to handle >10,000 requests per second!

This answer uses a 'test' API Key that is very limited and only meant for testing a few calls. Signup for your own Free API Key and get up to 1500 requests daily for development.

Replace 78.8.53.5 with any ip you want to look up

require 'rubygems' if RUBY_VERSION < '1.9'
require 'rest_client'

headers = {
  :accept => 'application/json'
}

response = RestClient.get 'https://api.ipdata.co/78.8.53.5?api-key=test', headers
puts response

That'd give you

{
    "ip": "78.8.53.5",
    "is_eu": true,
    "city": "G\u0142og\u00f3w",
    "region": "Lower Silesia",
    "region_code": "DS",
    "country_name": "Poland",
    "country_code": "PL",
    "continent_name": "Europe",
    "continent_code": "EU",
    "latitude": 51.6557,
    "longitude": 16.089,
    "asn": "AS12741",
    "organisation": "Netia SA",
    "postal": "67-200",
    "calling_code": "48",
    "flag": "https://ipdata.co/flags/pl.png",
    "emoji_flag": "\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf1",
    "emoji_unicode": "U+1F1F5 U+1F1F1",
    "carrier": {
        "name": "Netia",
        "mcc": "260",
        "mnc": "07"
    },
    "languages": [
        {
            "name": "Polish",
            "native": "Polski"
        }
    ],
    "currency": {
        "name": "Polish Zloty",
        "code": "PLN",
        "symbol": "z\u0142",
        "native": "z\u0142",
        "plural": "Polish zlotys"
    },
    "time_zone": {
        "name": "Europe/Warsaw",
        "abbr": "CEST",
        "offset": "+0200",
        "is_dst": true,
        "current_time": "2018-08-29T15:34:23.518065+02:00"
    },
    "threat": {
        "is_tor": false,
        "is_proxy": false,
        "is_anonymous": false,
        "is_known_attacker": false,
        "is_known_abuser": false,
        "is_threat": false,
        "is_bogon": false
    },
}
user_31765500

The gem geoip can be replaced with the new gem maxminddb. It support new MaxMind db format. 

db = MaxMindDB.new('./GeoLite2-City.mmdb')
ret = db.lookup('74.125.225.224')

ret.found? # => true
ret.country.name # => 'United States'
ret.country.name('zh-CN') # => '美国'
ret.country.iso_code # => 'US'
ret.city.name(:fr) # => 'Mountain View'
ret.subdivisions.most_specific.name # => 'California'
ret.location.latitude # => -122.0574
user_3020050
Related