---
name: "Geo::IP"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "perl-geoip"
version: "1.51-5"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Geo::IP"
---

# Geo::IP(3pm)

## SYNOPSIS

```
  use Geo::IP;
  my $gi = Geo::IP->new(GEOIP_MEMORY_CACHE);
  # look up IP address '24.24.24.24'
  # returns undef if country is unallocated, or not defined in our database
  my $country = $gi->country_code_by_addr('24.24.24.24');
  $country = $gi->country_code_by_name('yahoo.com');
  # $country is equal to "US"
  use Geo::IP;
  my $gi = Geo::IP->open("/usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoIPCity.dat", GEOIP_STANDARD);
  my $record = $gi->record_by_addr('24.24.24.24');
  print $record->country_code,
        $record->country_code3,
        $record->country_name,
        $record->region,
        $record->region_name,
        $record->city,
        $record->postal_code,
        $record->latitude,
        $record->longitude,
        $record->time_zone,
        $record->area_code,
        $record->continent_code,
        $record->metro_code;
  # the IPv6 support is currently only avail if you use the CAPI which is much
  # faster anyway. ie: print Geo::IP->api equals to 'CAPI'
  use Socket;
  use Socket6;
  use Geo::IP;
  my $g = Geo::IP->open('/usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoIPv6.dat') or die;
  print $g->country_code_by_ipnum_v6(inet_pton AF_INET6, '::24.24.24.24');
  print $g->country_code_by_addr_v6('2a02:e88::');
```

## DESCRIPTION

This module uses the GeoIP Legacy file based database.  This database simply contains IP blocks as keys, and countries as values. This database should be more complete and accurate than reverse DNS lookups.

This module can be used to automatically select the geographically closest mirror, to analyze your web server logs to determine the countries of your visitors, for credit card fraud detection, and for software export controls.

## IP GEOLOCATION USAGE

IP geolocation is inherently imprecise. Locations are often near the center of the population. Any location provided by a GeoIP database or web service should not be used to identify a particular address or household.

## IP ADDRESS TO COUNTRY DATABASES

Free monthly updates to the database are available from

```
  http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geolite
```

This free database is similar to the database contained in IP::Country, as well as many paid databases. It uses ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, and LACNIC whois to obtain the IP-\>Country mappings.

If you require greater accuracy, MaxMind offers a database on a paid subscription basis.  Also included with this is a service that updates your database automatically each month, by running a program called geoipupdate included with the C API from a cronjob.  For more details on the differences between the free and paid databases, see:

http://www.maxmind.com/en/geolocation\_landing

Do not miss the city database, described in Geo::IP::Record

Make sure to use the *geolite-mirror-simple.pl* script from the example directory to stay current with the databases.

## BENCHMARK the lookups are fast. This is my laptop ( examples/benchmark.pl ):

```
  Benchmark: running city_mem, city_std, country_mem, country_std, country_v6_mem, country_v6_std, isp_mem, isp_std for at least 10 CPU seconds...
    city_mem: 10.3121 wallclock secs (10.30 usr +  0.01 sys = 10.31 CPU) @ 387271.48/s (n=3992769)
    city_std: 10.0658 wallclock secs ( 2.86 usr +  7.17 sys = 10.03 CPU) @ 54392.62/s (n=545558)
  country_mem: 10.1772 wallclock secs (10.16 usr +  0.00 sys = 10.16 CPU) @ 1077507.97/s (n=10947481)
  country_std: 10.1432 wallclock secs ( 2.30 usr +  7.85 sys = 10.15 CPU) @ 83629.56/s (n=848840)
  country_v6_mem: 10.2579 wallclock secs (10.25 usr + -0.00 sys = 10.25 CPU) @ 365997.37/s (n=3751473)
  country_v6_std: 10.8541 wallclock secs ( 1.77 usr +  9.07 sys = 10.84 CPU) @ 10110.42/s (n=109597)
     isp_mem: 10.147 wallclock secs (10.13 usr +  0.01 sys = 10.14 CPU) @ 590109.66/s (n=5983712)
     isp_std: 10.0484 wallclock secs ( 2.71 usr +  7.33 sys = 10.04 CPU) @ 73186.35/s (n=734791)
```

## CLASS METHODS

- $gi = Geo::IP-\>new( $flags );

  Constructs a new Geo::IP object with the default database located inside your system's *datadir*, typically */usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat*.

  Flags can be set to either GEOIP\_STANDARD, or for faster performance (at a cost of using more memory), GEOIP\_MEMORY\_CACHE. When using memory cache you can force a reload if the file is updated by setting GEOIP\_CHECK\_CACHE. GEOIP\_INDEX\_CACHE caches the most frequently accessed index portion of the database, resulting in faster lookups than GEOIP\_STANDARD, but less memory usage than GEOIP\_MEMORY\_CACHE - useful for larger databases such as GeoIP Legacy Organization and GeoIP City. Note, for GeoIP Country, Region and Netspeed databases, GEOIP\_INDEX\_CACHE is equivalent to GEOIP\_MEMORY\_CACHE.

  Prior to geoip-api version 1.6.3, the C API would leak diagnostic messages onto stderr unconditionally. From Geo::IP v1.44 onwards, the flag squelching this behavior (GEOIP\_SILENCE) is implicitly added to the flags passed in **new()**, **open()**, and **open\_type()**.

  To combine flags, use the bitwise OR operator, \|.  For example, to cache the database in memory, but check for an updated GeoIP.dat file, use: Geo::IP-\>new( GEOIP\_MEMORY\_CACHE \| GEOIP\_CHECK\_CACHE );

- $gi = Geo::IP-\>open( $database\_filename, $flags );

  Constructs a new Geo::IP object with the database located at `$database_filename`.

- $gi = Geo::IP-\>open\_type( $database\_type, $flags );

  Constructs a new Geo::IP object with the `$database_type` database located in the standard location.  For example

  ```
    $gi = Geo::IP->open_type( GEOIP_CITY_EDITION_REV1 , GEOIP_STANDARD );
  ```

  opens the database file in the standard location for GeoIP Legacy City, typically */usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoIPCity.dat*.

## OBJECT METHODS

- $code = $gi-\>country\_code\_by\_addr( $ipaddr );

  Returns the ISO 3166 country code for an IP address.

- $code = $gi-\>country\_code\_by\_name( $hostname );

  Returns the ISO 3166 country code for a hostname.

- $code = $gi-\>country\_code3\_by\_addr( $ipaddr );

  Returns the 3 letter country code for an IP address.

- $code = $gi-\>country\_code3\_by\_name( $hostname );

  Returns the 3 letter country code for a hostname.

- $name = $gi-\>country\_name\_by\_addr( $ipaddr );

  Returns the full country name for an IP address.

- $name = $gi-\>country\_name\_by\_name( $hostname );

  Returns the full country name for a hostname.

- $r = $gi-\>record\_by\_addr( $ipaddr );

  Returns a Geo::IP::Record object containing city location for an IP address.

- $r = $gi-\>record\_by\_name( $hostname );

  Returns a Geo::IP::Record object containing city location for a hostname.

- $org = $gi-\>org\_by\_addr( $ipaddr ); **deprecated** use "name\_by\_addr" instead.

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for an IP address.

- $org = $gi-\>org\_by\_name( $hostname ); **deprecated** use "name\_by\_name" instead.

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for a hostname.

- $info = $gi-\>database\_info;

  Returns database string, includes version, date, build number and copyright notice.

- $old\_charset = $gi-\>set\_charset( $charset );

  Set the charset for the city name - defaults to GEOIP\_CHARSET\_ISO\_8859\_1.  To set UTF8, pass GEOIP\_CHARSET\_UTF8 to set\_charset. For perl \>= 5.008 the utf8 flag is honored.

- $charset = $gi-\>charset;

  Gets the currently used charset.

- ( $country, $region ) = $gi-\>region\_by\_addr('24.24.24.24');

  Returns a list containing country and region. If region and/or country is unknown, undef is returned. Sure this works only for region databases.

- ( $country, $region ) = $gi-\>region\_by\_name('www.xyz.com');

  Returns a list containing country and region. If region and/or country is unknown, undef is returned. Sure this works only for region databases.

- $netmask = $gi-\>last\_netmask;

  Gets netmask of network block from last lookup.

- $gi-\>netmask(12);

  Sets netmask for the last lookup

- my ( $from, $to ) = $gi-\>range\_by\_ip('24.24.24.24');

  Returns the start and end of the current network block. The method tries to join several continuous netblocks.

- $api = $gi-\>api or $api = Geo::IP-\>api

  Returns the currently used API.

  ```
    # prints either CAPI or PurePerl
    print Geo::IP->api;
  ```

- $continent = $gi-\>continent\_code\_by\_country\_code('US');

  Returns the continent code by country code.

- $dbe = $gi-\>database\_edition

  Returns the database\_edition of the currently opened database.

  ```
    if ( $gi->database_edition == GEOIP_COUNTRY_EDITION ){
      ...
    }
  ```

- $isp = $gi-\>isp\_by\_addr('24.24.24.24');

  Returns the isp for 24.24.24.24

- $isp = $gi-\>isp\_by\_name('www.maxmind.com');

  Returns the isp for www.something.de

- my $time\_zone = $gi-\>time\_zone('US', 'AZ');

  Returns the time zone for country/region.

  ```
    # undef
    print  $gi->time_zone('US', '');
    # America/Phoenix
    print  $gi->time_zone('US', 'AZ');
    # Europe/Berlin
    print  $gi->time_zone('DE', '00');
    # Europe/Berlin
    print  $gi->time_zone('DE', '');
  ```

- $id = $gi-\>id\_by\_addr('24.24.24.24');

  Returns the country\_id for 24.24.24.24. The country\_id might be useful as array index. 0 is unknown.

- $id = $gi-\>id\_by\_name('www.maxmind.com');

  Returns the country\_id for www.maxmind.com. The country\_id might be useful as array index. 0 is unknown.

- $cc = $gi-\>country\_code3\_by\_addr\_v6('::24.24.24.24');

  - $cc = $gi-\>country\_code3\_by\_name\_v6('ipv6.google.com');

  - $cc = $gi-\>country\_code\_by\_addr\_v6('2a02:ea0::');

  - $cc = $gi-\>country\_code\_by\_ipnum\_v6($ipnum);

  ```
    use Socket;
    use Socket6;
    use Geo::IP;
    my $g = Geo::IP->open('/usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoIPv6.dat') or die;
    print $g->country_code_by_ipnum_v6(inet_pton AF_INET6, '::24.24.24.24');
  ```

- $cc = $gi-\>country\_code\_by\_name\_v6('ipv6.google.com');

  - name\_by\_addr

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for a IP address.

- name\_by\_addr\_v6

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for an IPv6 address.

- name\_by\_ipnum\_v6

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for an ipnum.

- name\_by\_name

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for a hostname.

- name\_by\_name\_v6

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for a hostname.

- org\_by\_addr\_v6 **deprecated** use "name\_by\_addr\_v6"

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for an IPv6 address.

- org\_by\_name\_v6 **deprecated** use "name\_by\_name\_v6"

  Returns the Organization, ISP name or Domain Name for a hostname.

- teredo

  Returns the current setting for teredo.

- enable\_teredo

  Enable / disable teredo

  ```
    $gi->enable_teredo(1); # enable
    $gi->enable_teredo(0); # disable
  ```

- lib\_version

  ```
    if ( $gi->api eq 'CAPI' ){
        print $gi->lib_version;
    }
  ```

## ISSUE TRACKER AND GIT repo

Is available from GitHub, see

https://github.com/maxmind/geoip-api-perl

## SEE ALSO

GeoIP2 - database reader for the GeoIP2 format.