Finding geographic location of IP address

[axlq]

Does anyone have a favored way of finding the geographic location
of a user's IP address, so that a php script can include content
relevant to that location?

Reverse-lookup of the hostname isn't reliable and often doesn't
work, especially if the returned hostname ends with .com, .net,
..info, .biz or other tld that doesn't reveal geographic location.

I also see a bunch of commercial services that offer a "country
whois" function for a subscription fee. You'd think this sort of
capability would be standardized by now.

Is anybody doing this? If so, how?

-A

[Rik]

On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:48:58 +0200, axlq <ax**@spamcop.n etwrote:

Does anyone have a favored way of finding the geographic location
of a user's IP address, so that a php script can include content
relevant to that location?

Reverse-lookup of the hostname isn't reliable and often doesn't
work, especially if the returned hostname ends with .com, .net,
.info, .biz or other tld that doesn't reveal geographic location.

I also see a bunch of commercial services that offer a "country
whois" function for a subscription fee. You'd think this sort of
capability would be standardized by now.

Hardly. Giving out IP's has little to do with location. It's pretty hard
work keeping it up to date. There's hardly any chance of something really
reliable, and certainly not for free.

Is anybody doing this? If so, how?

By using a database updated by a third party, with information more or
less accurate most of the time:
<http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity>
--
Rik Wasmus

[NC]

On Aug 16, 11:48 am, [e-mail] t (axlq) wrote:

>
Does anyone have a favored way of finding the geographic location
of a user's IP address, so that a php script can include content
relevant to that location?

Nope. IP addresses often lie. AOL users in the U.S. all appear to
come from Virginia. AOL users in Germany are often seen as coming
from the UK. Users on corporate networks are usually seen as located
at the corporation's headquarters or even the corporation's telco's
headquarters.

I also see a bunch of commercial services that offer a "country
whois" function for a subscription fee. You'd think this sort of
capability would be standardized by now.

It is. Matching IP addresses with locations is done based on WHOIS
information. But to get and keep current WHOIS for the entire
Internet, you need to be a domain registrar or good friends with
one. :) Plus, WHOIS reflects who owns the IP address, not who uses
it...

Cheers,
NC

[Rik]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:02:59 +0200, NC <[e-mail] ote:

>I also see a bunch of commercial services that offer a "country
whois" function for a subscription fee. You'd think this sort of
capability would be standardized by now.

It is. Matching IP addresses with locations is done based on WHOIS
information.

They might use them, however, mathing IP-adresses to country (state, city)
is not entirely done by WHOIS information. It is often a fallback if
nothing else is known/certain. A lot of the more reliable sources
continuously hold massive 'surveys' (do you live here? if not, please tell
us where you do...), and get information from third parties where an
IP-address and geolocation are given (some ISP's and larger online stores
for example, allthough they would have to have a very precise privacy
statement IMHO). Millions of datasets get processed to extrapolate some
probable range of ip's for a location, in which case the whois information
comes in handy for determening which ISP's hold certain ranges. That's
more of a 'boundary'-determining of a range then the actual 'value' of a
range. AOL is certainly hard to pin down due to their proxy network.

It's all quite a lot of work, and terribly expensive.

And on a sidenote in this thread a warning to all trying to use
geolocation to determine language: don't, use the language-accept headers.
Geolocation might be usefull to provide 'local' information or to
determine the general location of (groups of) clients.
--
Rik Wasmus

[axlq]

In article <op.tw51e6taqnv 3q9@metallium>,
Rik <lu************ @hotmail.comwro te:

>Is anybody doing this? If so, how?

By using a database updated by a third party, with information more or
less accurate most of the time:
<http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity>

Thanks. Gag... scan through a 28 megabyte database just to find my
user's city? All I need are countries, and I see that site has a
country databse. Thanks.

-A

[axlq]

In article <op.tw6bb5g7qnv 3q9@metallium>,
Rik <lu************ @hotmail.comwro te:
[snip explanation of effort involved maintaining an IP country database]

Thanks. I didn't realize it was so involved.

>And on a sidenote in this thread a warning to all trying to use
geolocation to determine language: don't, use the language-accept
headers. Geolocation might be usefull to provide 'local'
information or to determine the general location of (groups of)
clients.

All I need it for is to make an educated guess about the user's
country, just so a selection box will default to the right type of
currency for exchange-rate calculations. Geolocation isn't even
necessary for the site I'm building but I thought it would be a
user-friendly touch to have certain defaults based on country.

-A

[R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah]

On Aug 16, 11:48 pm, [e-mail] t (axlq) wrote:

Does anyone have a favored way of finding the geographic location
of a user's IP address, so that a php script can include content
relevant to that location?

<snip>
1. http://ip-to-country.webhosting.info/
2. http://groups.google.com/group/comp....2732449830364d

--
<?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

[Steve]

here's a straight-forward method to begin with. any other issues raised can
be answered easily with a little investigation and modification to this
general approach. the best you can do is find the issuing isp. most of the
time, the user of the ip is very near the issuer.

hih,

me

=============== ===

<?
class isp
{
public $address = '';
public $city = '';
public $clientIp = '';
public $country = '';
public $email = '';
public $name = '';
public $phone = '';
public $state = '';
public $zip = '';

private function __clone(){}

public function __construct($ip = '')
{
if (!$ip)
{
if (!$ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP '])
{
if (!$ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARD ED_FOR'])
{
if (!$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']){ $ip = ''; }
}
}
}
$this->clientIp = $ip;
$query =
file_get_conten ts("http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryi nput=$ip");
if (strstr($query, "No match")){ return; }
$this->name = $this->getSegment('Or gName:', $query);
if ($isp->isp == '')
{
$href = preg_match('/HREF="([^"]*)"/', $query, $uri);
$href = 'http://ws.arin.net' . $uri[1];
$query = file_get_conten ts($href);
}

$this->address = strtoupper($thi s->getSegment('Ad dress:' ,
$query));
$this->city = strtoupper($thi s->getSegment('Ci ty:' ,
$query));
$this->country = strtoupper($thi s->getSegment('Co untry:' ,
$query));
$this->email = strtolower($thi s->getSegment('Or gAbuseEmail:' ,
$query));
$this->name = strtoupper($thi s->getSegment('Or gName:' ,
$query));
$this->phone = strtoupper($thi s->getSegment('Or gAbusePhone:' ,
$query));
$this->state = strtoupper($thi s->getSegment('St ateProv:' ,
$query));
$this->zip = strtoupper($thi s->getSegment('Po stalCode:' ,
$query));
}

private function getSegment($seg ment, $source)
{
$pattern = '/' . $segment . '([^\n]*)\n/i';
$segment = preg_match($pat tern, $source, $matches);
$segment = preg_replace('/<[^>]*>/', '', $matches[1]);
return $segment;
}
}
?>

[R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah]

On Aug 19, 3:20 am, "Steve" <no....@example .comwrote:

here's a straight-forward method to begin with. any other issues raised can
be answered easily with a little investigation and modification to this
general approach. the best you can do is find the issuing isp. most of the
time, the user of the ip is very near the issuer.

<snip>

$href = 'http://ws.arin.net'. $uri[1];

<snip>

ws.arin.net host won't return whois info for all IP blocks. See my
post above.

--
<?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

[axlq]

In article <Yg************ *@newsfe12.lga> , Steve <no****@example .comwrote:

>here's a straight-forward method to begin with. any other issues raised can
be answered easily with a little investigation and modification to this
general approach. the best you can do is find the issuing isp. most of the
time, the user of the ip is very near the issuer.

[snip example to get country information from whois server like ARIN]

That's an interesting approach, but seems impractical to me. Most
whois servers will cut you off if you have too many requests in one
day. For a high-traffic site that needs geolocation information, a
local database may be best.

-A