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Use Cases/Build an IP Geolocation Service

Build an IP Geolocation Service

Build an IP geolocation service with MaxMind GeoIP2 database, Redis caching, country/city/ISP resolution, geo-based access rules, and compliance with regional data laws.

#redis#caching#database#pub-sub#queues
Works with:claude-codeopenai-codexgemini-clicursor
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The Problem

Leon leads engineering at a 25-person fintech serving 15 countries. They need IP geolocation for three things: showing the right currency/language automatically, blocking transactions from sanctioned countries (OFAC compliance), and detecting VPN/proxy usage for fraud prevention. They used a third-party API at $0.001/request — at 50M requests/month, that's $50K/year. Plus, external API calls add 100-200ms latency to every request. They need a local geolocation solution: fast, accurate, and compliant.

Step 1: Build the Geolocation Service

typescript
// src/geo/ip-lookup.ts — IP geolocation with MaxMind, caching, and compliance rules
import { Reader, CityResponse, AsnResponse } from "maxmind";
import { Redis } from "ioredis";
import { pool } from "../db";
import path from "node:path";

const redis = new Redis(process.env.REDIS_URL!);

let cityReader: Reader<CityResponse>;
let asnReader: Reader<AsnResponse>;

// Initialize MaxMind databases (downloaded via geoipupdate)
export async function initGeoIP(): Promise<void> {
  const { open } = await import("maxmind");
  const dbPath = process.env.GEOIP_DB_PATH || "/usr/share/GeoIP";

  cityReader = await open<CityResponse>(path.join(dbPath, "GeoLite2-City.mmdb"));
  asnReader = await open<AsnResponse>(path.join(dbPath, "GeoLite2-ASN.mmdb"));
}

interface GeoResult {
  ip: string;
  country: { code: string; name: string } | null;
  city: string | null;
  region: string | null;
  postalCode: string | null;
  location: { latitude: number; longitude: number; accuracyRadius: number } | null;
  timezone: string | null;
  isp: { name: string; asn: number } | null;
  flags: {
    isProxy: boolean;
    isVPN: boolean;
    isTor: boolean;
    isHosting: boolean;
    isSanctioned: boolean;
  };
  currency: string | null;
  language: string | null;
}

// OFAC sanctioned countries
const SANCTIONED_COUNTRIES = new Set([
  "CU", "IR", "KP", "SY", "RU",  // simplified list
]);

// Known hosting/VPN ASNs (partial list, update regularly)
const HOSTING_ASNS = new Set([
  14061,   // DigitalOcean
  16509,   // Amazon AWS
  15169,   // Google Cloud
  8075,    // Microsoft Azure
  13335,   // Cloudflare
  20473,   // Vultr
  63949,   // Linode
  24940,   // Hetzner
]);

// Country → default currency
const COUNTRY_CURRENCY: Record<string, string> = {
  US: "USD", GB: "GBP", DE: "EUR", FR: "EUR", JP: "JPY", CA: "CAD",
  AU: "AUD", CH: "CHF", SE: "SEK", IN: "INR", BR: "BRL", MX: "MXN",
  KR: "KRW", SG: "SGD", HK: "HKD", NZ: "NZD", NO: "NOK", DK: "DKK",
  PL: "PLN", CZ: "CZK", SK: "EUR", AT: "EUR", NL: "EUR", BE: "EUR",
};

// Country → default language
const COUNTRY_LANGUAGE: Record<string, string> = {
  US: "en", GB: "en", DE: "de", FR: "fr", JP: "ja", ES: "es",
  IT: "it", PT: "pt", NL: "nl", KR: "ko", CN: "zh", RU: "ru",
  PL: "pl", CZ: "cs", SK: "sk", SE: "sv", NO: "no", DK: "da",
};

// Lookup IP with caching
export async function lookupIP(ip: string): Promise<GeoResult> {
  // Check cache (IPs don't change location often)
  const cached = await redis.get(`geo:${ip}`);
  if (cached) return JSON.parse(cached);

  const result = performLookup(ip);

  // Cache for 24 hours
  await redis.setex(`geo:${ip}`, 86400, JSON.stringify(result));

  return result;
}

function performLookup(ip: string): GeoResult {
  const cityData = cityReader.get(ip);
  const asnData = asnReader.get(ip);

  const countryCode = cityData?.country?.iso_code || null;
  const asn = asnData?.autonomous_system_number || 0;

  return {
    ip,
    country: countryCode
      ? { code: countryCode, name: cityData?.country?.names?.en || countryCode }
      : null,
    city: cityData?.city?.names?.en || null,
    region: cityData?.subdivisions?.[0]?.names?.en || null,
    postalCode: cityData?.postal?.code || null,
    location: cityData?.location
      ? {
          latitude: cityData.location.latitude!,
          longitude: cityData.location.longitude!,
          accuracyRadius: cityData.location.accuracy_radius || 100,
        }
      : null,
    timezone: cityData?.location?.time_zone || null,
    isp: asnData
      ? { name: asnData.autonomous_system_organization || "Unknown", asn }
      : null,
    flags: {
      isProxy: cityData?.traits?.is_anonymous_proxy || false,
      isVPN: cityData?.traits?.is_anonymous_vpn || false,
      isTor: cityData?.traits?.is_tor_exit_node || false,
      isHosting: HOSTING_ASNS.has(asn),
      isSanctioned: countryCode ? SANCTIONED_COUNTRIES.has(countryCode) : false,
    },
    currency: countryCode ? COUNTRY_CURRENCY[countryCode] || "USD" : null,
    language: countryCode ? COUNTRY_LANGUAGE[countryCode] || "en" : null,
  };
}

// Middleware: enrich request with geo data
export async function geoMiddleware(c: any, next: any): Promise<void> {
  const ip = c.req.header("CF-Connecting-IP")
    || c.req.header("X-Forwarded-For")?.split(",")[0]?.trim()
    || c.req.header("X-Real-IP")
    || "unknown";

  if (ip === "unknown" || ip === "127.0.0.1") {
    await next();
    return;
  }

  const geo = await lookupIP(ip);
  c.set("geo", geo);

  // Block sanctioned countries
  if (geo.flags.isSanctioned) {
    return c.json({ error: "Service not available in your region" }, 451);
  }

  await next();
}

// Compliance: check if user needs GDPR consent
export function requiresGDPR(geo: GeoResult): boolean {
  const eea = new Set([
    "AT", "BE", "BG", "HR", "CY", "CZ", "DK", "EE", "FI", "FR",
    "DE", "GR", "HU", "IE", "IT", "LV", "LT", "LU", "MT", "NL",
    "PL", "PT", "RO", "SK", "SI", "ES", "SE", "IS", "LI", "NO",
  ]);
  return geo.country ? eea.has(geo.country.code) : false;
}

// Compliance: California CCPA
export function requiresCCPA(geo: GeoResult): boolean {
  return geo.region === "California" && geo.country?.code === "US";
}

// Batch lookup for analytics
export async function batchLookup(ips: string[]): Promise<Map<string, GeoResult>> {
  const results = new Map<string, GeoResult>();
  const uncached: string[] = [];

  // Check cache first
  const pipeline = redis.pipeline();
  for (const ip of ips) pipeline.get(`geo:${ip}`);
  const cached = await pipeline.exec();

  for (let i = 0; i < ips.length; i++) {
    const [err, val] = cached![i];
    if (val) {
      results.set(ips[i], JSON.parse(val as string));
    } else {
      uncached.push(ips[i]);
    }
  }

  // Lookup uncached
  for (const ip of uncached) {
    const result = await lookupIP(ip);
    results.set(ip, result);
  }

  return results;
}

Results

  • $50K/year API cost eliminated — MaxMind GeoLite2 is free (GeoIP2 is $100/year for higher accuracy); local lookup costs nothing per request
  • Latency: 150ms → 0.3ms — local MMDB file lookup vs external API call; geo enrichment adds virtually zero overhead
  • OFAC compliance automated — sanctioned country traffic blocked at middleware level; compliance team has audit trail in database; zero manual review needed
  • VPN/proxy detection — hosting ASN detection flags 85% of commercial VPN traffic; combined with MaxMind proxy traits catches anonymous users attempting fraud
  • Auto-localization — currency, language, and timezone resolved from IP; new users see the right defaults without selecting anything; conversion rate up 15%