How to configure .htaccess redirects based on Geo IP

In My Work, Web DevelopmentTags Apache, Linux, PHP, System AdministratorMay 2, 2015

Recently I had a request, asking how can we setup redirects by country to have country specific landing pages. This can be done by installing mod_geoip, you can download GeoIP legacy Apache module from GITHUB – compile the source on your environment and configure. Or you could install from a repository.

For ubuntu you can run the following command:

sudo apt-get install php5-geoip php5-dev libgeoip-dev

Then, run the following command:

sudo pecl install geoip

Once the installation is complete, it will probably tell you that an extension= line cannot be found in your php.ini file. Let’s find your php.ini file and add the required lines:

sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

This will open your php.ini, we have to add “extension=geoip.so” to the [PHP] section:

[PHP]
;AFTER THE PHP SECTION NOT BEFORE
extension=geoip.so

and restart Apache:

sudo service apache2 restart

Now create a .htaccess file. For example if you want to block clients from Russia and China:

SetEnvIf GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE CN BlockCountry
SetEnvIf GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE RU BlockCountry
Deny from env=BlockCountry

If you want to redirect based on the country using mod_rewrite in combination with mod_geoip, your .htaccess file could look like this:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} ^(NL|BE)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.com/nl/$1 [L]

For more example take a look at the website of MaxMind

That’s it – don’t forget to comment below.

6 comments On How to configure .htaccess redirects based on Geo IP

Tristan
September 13, 2017 at 14:34 - Reply

Hi Torbjorn, excellent info.

I tried the following, using your example (masking my domain name for privacy reasons):

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} ^(NL|BE)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://mydomain.com/shop/nl/$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} ^(DE)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://mydomain.com/shop/de/$1 [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

Unfortunately, this gives me an http:500 error. I am probably making a very stupid error somehow, wondering if you could help?

Kind regards, Tristan
- torbjornzetterlund
  September 16, 2017 at 09:16 - Reply
  
  Do you have the rewrite engine enabled in Apache?
Sathish
August 4, 2018 at 12:49 - Reply

Hi,

I have followed your article to setup geoip, but i’m using PHP 7.2.7

This is my code, i have enabled geoip with wordpress, following is my .htaccess code

I want to redirect my home page for india to https://hostguns.com/in

For global sit : https://hostguns.com

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} ^(IN)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://hostguns.com/in/$1 [L]

But i this configuration didn’t work well.

I have tested the htaccess, it is working fine.

All countries show only https://hostguns.com.

Can you help me in this ?

Thanks in advance.
- torbjornzetterlund
  September 3, 2018 at 14:32 - Reply
  
  Sorry, been away. Have you been able to resolve.
Johan
September 4, 2018 at 05:17 - Reply

Hi Torbjorn, Nice article. Do you have an article for IP2Location LITE database? It has database with ZIP code and we would like to block by ZIP codes.
- torbjornzetterlund
  September 4, 2018 at 08:43 - Reply
  
  Johan,
  
  No, I don’t have an article on IP2Location LITE database, we have not been able to test how you could block by IP codes. Maybe in your testing, you would like to contribute and article on IP2Location LITE database.
  
  Torbjorn