---
name: "GeoIP.conf"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "geoipupdate"
version: "8.0.0-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/GeoIP.conf"
---

# GeoIP.conf(5)

Configuration file for geoipupdate

## NAME

GeoIP.conf - Configuration file for geoipupdate

## SYNOPSIS

This file allows you to configure your `geoipupdate` program to download GeoIP and GeoLite databases.

## DESCRIPTION

The file consists of one setting per line. Lines starting with `#` are comments and will not be processed. All setting keywords are case sensitive.

### Required settings:

- `AccountID`

  Your MaxMind account ID. This was formerly known as `UserId`. This can be overridden at run time by either the `GEOIPUPDATE_ACCOUNT_ID` or the `GEOIPUPDATE_ACCOUNT_ID_FILE` environment variables.

- `LicenseKey`

  Your case-sensitive MaxMind license key. This can be overridden at run time by either the `GEOIPUPDATE_LICENSE_KEY` or `GEOIPUPDATE_LICENSE_KEY_FILE` environment variables.

- `EditionIDs`

  List of space-separated database edition IDs. Edition IDs may consist of letters, digits, and dashes. For example, `GeoIP2-City` would download the GeoIP City database (`GeoIP2-City`). This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_EDITION_IDS` environment variable. Note: this was formerly called `ProductIds`.

### Optional settings:

- `DatabaseDirectory`

  The directory to store the database files. If not set, the default is /var/lib/GeoIP. This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_DB_DIR` environment variable or the `-d` command line argument.

- `Host`

  The host name of the server to use. The default is `https://updates.maxmind.com`. This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_HOST` environment variable.

- `Proxy`

  The proxy host name or IP address. You may optionally specify a port number, e.g., `127.0.0.1:8888`. If no port number is specified, 1080 will be used. This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_PROXY` environment variable.

- `ProxyUserPassword`

  The proxy user name and password, separated by a colon. For instance, `username:password`. This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_PROXY_USER_PASSWORD` environment variable.

- `PreserveFileTimes`

  Whether to preserve modification times of files downloaded from the server. This option is either `0` or `1`. The default is `0`. This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_PRESERVE_FILE_TIMES` environment variable.

- `LockFile`

  The lock file to use. This ensures only one `geoipupdate` process can run at a time. Note: Once created, this lockfile is not removed from the filesystem. The default is `.geoipupdate.lock` under the `DatabaseDirectory`. This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_LOCK_FILE` environment variable.

- `RetryFor`

  The amount of time to retry for when errors during HTTP transactions are encountered. It can be specified as a (possibly fractional) decimal number followed by a unit suffix. Valid time units are `ns`, `us` (or `µs`), `ms`, `s`, `m`, `h`. The default is `5m` (5 minutes). This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_RETRY_FOR` environment variable.

- `Parallelism`

  The maximum number of parallel database downloads. The default is 1, which means that databases will be downloaded sequentially. This can be overridden at run time by the `GEOIPUPDATE_PARALLELISM` environment variable or the `--parallelism` command line argument.

### Deprecated settings:

The following are deprecated and will be ignored if present:

`Protocol`

`SkipPeerVerification`

`SkipHostnameVerification`

## SEE ALSO

[`geoipupdate`(1)](/geoipupdate/1.md)