geoipmq
---

This is a simple service for resolving an ip address to its geographic location. It's basically just a ZeroMQ front end for the MaxMind GeoIP library.  

It supports a single command over a ZeroMQ request/response socket:

geoip ip_addr

The response is tab delimited geo information, in the following order:

Country
Region (aka State)
City
Postal Code
Latitude
Longitude
Metro Code
Area Code

An exmaple response:
US  TX	    Longview	 75605	 32.583199	 -94.714798	 709	 903

Note that any field may be returned as (null).


Installation
---

1. Install ZeroMQ per http://www.zeromq.org/intro:get-the-software
2. Install MaxMind's GeoIP C libraries per: http://www.maxmind.com/app/c
3. Build geoipmq: 
   gcc main.c -lzmq -lGeoIP -o geoipmq

Running
--
To use geoipmq, you need to obtain a copy of MaxMind's free GeoLite city database.  This is available here:

http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity

Currently MaxMind claims a 79% accuracy at the city level for the free database. For better accuracy you can upgrade to the paid version -- it should be a drop in replacement.

Once you have a city database, start up as:

geoipmq geoipdb port

And you're ready to go.