Maxmind makes a variety of APIs and tools to use their geolocation database and one such tool is the mod_geoip module for Apache. Using the GeoIP module at the apache level means that PHP can access the visitor’s country code simply by means of an environment variable such as this:
echo $_SERVER['GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE'];
To setup Nginx with this capability we’ll need to recompile Nginx if you have not already used the –with-http_geoip_module compile option.
First we’ll need to install the GeoIP API system-wide:
CentOS (yum)
yum install GeoIP-develDebian/Ubuntu (aptitude)
apt-get install libgeoip-devMac OS X 10.5+ (via HomeBrew)
brew install geoip sudo brew link geoip
Once you have the GeoIP library installed you can then proceed to recompile Nginx, this is rather simple if you have installed Nginx from source (this assumes you already have the nginx source unpacked somewhere):
$ cd src/nginx-0.8.53 $ nginx -V nginx version: nginx/0.8.53 built by gcc 4.4.4 (Debian 4.4.4-6) TLS SNI support enabled configure arguments: --prefix=/opt --with-pcre=/root/src/pcre-8.02 --with-md5=/usr/lib --with-sha1=/usr/lib --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-openssl=/root/src/openssl-1.0.0a/ --without-mail_pop3_module --without-mail_imap_module --without-mail_smtp_module $ ./configure --prefix=/opt --with-pcre=/root/src/pcre-8.02 --with-md5=/usr/lib --with-sha1=/usr/lib \ --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_gzip_static_module \ --with-openssl=/root/src/openssl-1.0.0a/ --without-mail_pop3_module \ --without-mail_imap_module --without-mail_smtp_module --with-http_geoip_module $ make && sudo make install $ /etc/init.d/nginx restart
We’ll want to download the Maxmind Geolite Country Database some place Nginx can use it.
$ cd /opt/conf $ wget http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCountry/GeoIP.dat.gz $ gunzip ./GeoIP.dat.gz
Then we need to tell Nginx where to find that file, so in your nginx.conf add this in your http { } block:
geoip_country /opt/conf/GeoIP.dat; #geoip_city /opt/conf/GeoLiteCity.dat; #Uncomment the above if you also wish to lookup cities
Once that is done you can restart Nginx, you’ll be able to use variables such as $geoip_country_code to obtain the visitor’s country code. Full details of this module can be found at HttpGeoIPModule.
We’re not done yet, now we need to make it so that PHP see’s these results in the same fashion it would with the apache module. In your fastcgi_params or where ever you are passing fastcgi_param values to PHP you’ll wish to add at least these two lines:
fastcgi_param GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE $geoip_country_code; fastcgi_param GEOIP_COUNTRY_NAME $geoip_country_name;
Once that is done, restart Nginx. Now you’ll be able to access the visitor’s country code in PHP via $_SERVER[‘GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE].
You can instead use the module to redirect visitors straight from nginx in the following fashion:
server {
server_name mysite.com www.mysite.com;
root /opt/html/mysite.com;
location / {
try_files /index_$geoip_country_code.html index.html;
}
}If a visitor from Russia visits your site it will try to load index_RU.html, and if that is not found will fall back to index.html, likewise if you created a index_US.html a visitor from the United States will see that page’s content.