Achmad Z's Archives: Self notes: PHP - installing and using MaxMind GeoLite Country

This is another short notes for myself for future use.
Today I have to use some Geo targeting for Friendster Private Profile Viewer so the chat will show on front page only if the user IP address come from Philippines, Indonesia or unknown country.

I decided to use MaxMind GeoLite Country so it doesn't need to call Geo location API from other site.

This is simple instruction how to install and use it.

Download GeoLite country database from : http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCountry/GeoIP.dat.gz
extract/gunzip it
upload to your site home directory (public_html)
download geoip.inc from here: http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/api/php/geoip.inc
upload geoip.inc in the same folder as GeoIP.dat (result from step 2) on your website home directory
use it!

this is some code example:

<?php
require_once("geoip.inc");
$gi = geoip_open("./GeoIP.dat",GEOIP_STANDARD);
$countrycode=geoip_country_code_by_addr($gi, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
if (($countrycode=="PH")||(strlen($countrycode)<2)||($countrycode=="ID")) {
//do some geo targeting here
}
geoip_close($gi);
?>