GeoipRails

Gives geolocation details based on an IP address or a host name The gem uses freegeoip's API to fetch geolocation data given an IP address. freegeoip.net is a public REST API for searching geolocation of IP addresses and host names. Supported formats include json (default), xml and csv. Thanks to http://freegeoip.net/ for providing such a great API.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'geoip_rails'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install geoip_rails

Usage

You can pass the IP address/hostname for which you want to check geolocation data to:

GeoipRails.geolocate("208.95.216.41")
=> {"ip"=>"208.95.216.41", "country_code"=>"US", "country_name"=>"United States", 
"region_code"=>"VT", "region_name"=>"Vermont", "city"=>"Colchester", "zipcode"=>"05446", 
"latitude"=>44.55, "longitude"=>-73.1552, "metro_code"=>"523", "area_code"=>"802"}

GeoipRails.geolocate("google.com")
=> {"ip"=>"173.194.115.72", "country_code"=>"US", "country_name"=>"United States", 
"region_code"=>"CA", "region_name"=>"California", "city"=>"Mountain View", "zipcode"=>"94043", 
"latitude"=>37.4192, "longitude"=>-122.0574, "metro_code"=>"807", "area_code"=>"650"}

You can of course select your desired value from the hash i.e.

GeoipRails.geolocate("208.95.216.41")["country_name"]
=> "United States"
GeoipRails.geolocate("208.95.216.41")["country_code"]
=> "US"

And so on. But we have shorthand methods for all this as shown below:

GeoipRails.country("208.95.216.41")
 => "United States" 
GeoipRails.city("208.95.216.41")
 => "Colchester" 
GeoipRails.area_code("208.95.216.41")
 => "802" 
GeoipRails.metro_code("208.95.216.41")
 => "523" 
GeoipRails.zipcode("208.95.216.41")
 => "05446" 
GeoipRails.region_code("208.95.216.41")
 => "VT" 
GeoipRails.region_name("208.95.216.41")
 => "Vermont" 
GeoipRails.latitude("208.95.216.41")
 => 44.55 
GeoipRails.longitude("208.95.216.41")
 => -73.1552

If, for some reason, you want the response in xml or csv, you can use the same method but, pass in an extra argument for the format, as shown below:

GeoipRails.geolocate("208.95.216.41", "xml")

GeoipRails.geolocate("208.95.216.41", "csv")

GeoipRails.geolocate("208.95.216.41", "json") # Json is the default. You don't need to specify it.

Pros and Cons

Pros

This gem relies on the freegeoip.net API which already has an internal database with geolocation information, which is queried via the API. This means that you don't have to deal with the database yourself as you would with some of the gems out there.

Cons

The freegoip.net API has a usage limit but, you will probably never have to worry about it. API usage is limited to 10,000 queries per hour. After reaching this limit, all requests will result in HTTP 403 (Forbidden) until the roll over.

If the usage limit is a problem, please consider running your own instance of this system. It's open source and freely available at GitHub.

Download the source code at https://github.com/fiorix/freegeoip.

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create new Pull Request