maxminddb-rust

A high-performance Rust-based Python module for MaxMind DB files. Provides 100% API compatibility with the official maxminddb module with similar performance.

Performance

Benchmark results using 10 million random IP lookups per database (single-threaded):

Database	Size	Lookups/sec
GeoLite2-Country	9.4MB	527,297
GeoLite2-City	61MB	338,879
GeoIP2-City	117MB	332,827

Test Environment: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (20 cores, up to 6.5GHz), Linux 6.17

These are single-threaded results; the reader is fully thread-safe and can be shared across multiple threads for parallel lookups.

Features

API Compatibility

This package provides 100% API compatibility with the official maxminddb Python module:

Supported:

• ✅ Reader class with get(), get_with_prefix_len(), metadata(), and close() methods
• ✅ open_database() function
• ✅ Context manager support (with statement)
• ✅ MODE_* constants (MODE_AUTO, MODE_MMAP, etc.)
• ✅ InvalidDatabaseError exception
• ✅ Metadata class with all attributes and computed properties
• ✅ Support for string IP addresses and ipaddress.IPv4Address/IPv6Address objects
• ✅ closed attribute
• ✅ Iterator support (__iter__) for iterating over all database records

Extensions (not in original):

• ⭐ get_many() - Batch lookup method for processing multiple IPs efficiently

Not Yet Implemented:

• ⏸️ MODE_FILE mode (currently only MODE_AUTO, MODE_MMAP, and MODE_MEMORY supported)
• ⏸️ File descriptor support in constructor

Installation

From PyPI

pip install maxminddb-rust

From Source

maturin develop --release

Usage

This module provides the same API as maxminddb, just with a different import name:

import maxminddb_rust  # High-performance Rust implementation

# Open database
reader = maxminddb_rust.open_database("/var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb")

# Lookup single IP
result = reader.get("8.8.8.8")
print(result)

# Lookup with prefix length
result, prefix_len = reader.get_with_prefix_len("8.8.8.8")
print(f"Result: {result}, Prefix: {prefix_len}")

# Use with ipaddress objects
import ipaddress
ip = ipaddress.IPv4Address("8.8.8.8")
result = reader.get(ip)

# Access metadata
metadata = reader.metadata()
print(f"Database type: {metadata.database_type}")
print(f"Node count: {metadata.node_count}")

# Context manager support
with maxminddb_rust.open_database("/var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb") as reader:
    result = reader.get("1.1.1.1")
    print(result)

Batch Lookup (Extension)

The get_many() method is an extension not available in the original maxminddb module:

import maxminddb_rust

reader = maxminddb_rust.open_database("/var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb")

# Lookup multiple IPs at once
ips = ["8.8.8.8", "1.1.1.1", "208.67.222.222"]
results = reader.get_many(ips)

for ip, result in zip(ips, results):
    print(f"{ip}: {result}")

Iterator Support

Iterate over all networks in the database:

import maxminddb_rust

reader = maxminddb_rust.open_database("/var/lib/GeoIP/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb")

# Iterate over all networks in the database
for network, data in reader:
    print(f"{network}: {data['country']['iso_code']}")

Database Modes

Choose between memory-mapped files (default, best performance) and in-memory mode:

import maxminddb_rust

# MODE_AUTO: Uses memory-mapped files (default, fastest)
reader = maxminddb_rust.open_database("/var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb", mode=maxminddb_rust.MODE_AUTO)

# MODE_MMAP: Explicitly use memory-mapped files
reader = maxminddb_rust.open_database("/var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb", mode=maxminddb_rust.MODE_MMAP)

# MODE_MEMORY: Load entire database into memory (useful for embedded systems or when file handle limits are a concern)
reader = maxminddb_rust.open_database("/var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb", mode=maxminddb_rust.MODE_MEMORY)

Examples

The examples/ directory contains complete working examples demonstrating various use cases:

• basic_usage.py - Simple IP lookups, metadata access, and database lifecycle
• context_manager.py - Using with statement for automatic resource cleanup
• iterator_demo.py - Iterating over all networks in the database
• batch_processing.py - High-performance batch lookups with get_many()

Run any example:

uv run python examples/basic_usage.py
uv run python examples/batch_processing.py

Documentation

• API Documentation: All classes and methods include comprehensive docstrings. Use Python's built-in help():

  import maxminddb_rust
  help(maxminddb_rust.open_database)
  help(maxminddb_rust.Reader.get)

• Type Hints: Full type stub file (maxminddb_rust.pyi) included for IDE autocomplete and type checking
• Changelog: See CHANGELOG.md for version history and release notes
• Migration Guide: See MIGRATION.md for migrating from the official maxminddb package

Benchmarking

Run the included benchmarks (after building from source):

# Single lookup benchmark
uv run python benchmark.py --file /var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb --count 250000

# Comprehensive benchmark across multiple databases
uv run python benchmark_comprehensive.py --count 250000

# Batch lookup benchmark
uv run python benchmark_batch.py --file /var/lib/GeoIP/GeoIP2-City.mmdb --batch-size 100

Testing

This project includes comprehensive tests, including upstream compatibility tests from MaxMind-DB-Reader-python.

# Initialize test data submodule (first time only)
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Run all tests
uv run pytest

# Run with verbose output
uv run pytest -v

For contributor information including development setup, code quality tools, and test syncing, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

For upstream test compatibility and syncing instructions, see tests/maxmind/README.md.

License

ISC License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, code quality guidelines, and pull request procedures.