Blocking countries with GeoLite2 in nginx using the letsencrypt docker container

Since the GeoLite legacy database has been discontinued, we now have to use the GeoLite2 database to get new updates to the database. This will be a followup article from the post i made about the legacy database. As the new GeoLite2 database uses a new format (maxminddb) we couldn’t just switch to the new database. Nginx also needed to  be compiled with the geoip2 modul. And with Aptalca’s pull request on the alpine repo added it will just be a matter of a minor update to the nginx.conf file!

GeoLite2 database

The database can be found here: https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/ and its the country database we’ll be using for this guide.

Download the database and extract the .mmdb file to the folder of you choice. I’ll be using /config/geolite2/ for my setup.

NGINX

In your nginx.conf file add the following in the http {block

geoip2 /config/geolite2/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb {
auto_reload 1d;
$geoip2_data_country_code country iso_code;
}
# LOCAL IP ALLOW GEO BLOCK
    geo $lan-ip {
    default no;
    192.168.1.0/24 yes;
    }
# GEO IP BLOCK SITE 1
    map $geoip2_data_country_code $allowed_country {
    default no;
    <YOUR-COUNTRY-CODE> yes; # e.g US for United States 
    }

Instead of "YOUR-COUNTRY-CODE" add your own country code from this list. This will block all other countries than the one you choose. You can also add more than one country if you want.

US yes;
CA yes;
GB yes;

The geo $lan-ip is for allowing you to access the domain on your LAN.
Check out https://www.aelius.com/njh/subnet_sheet.html if you are wondering what your CIDR notation is. Most often it will be /24 (netmask 255.255.255.0)
To find your netmask run ipconfig /all on windows or ifconfig | grep netmask on linux.

Note: The geo $lan-ip part is only needed if you set default to no

For it to actually block you need to add this in your server block:

 # LOCAL IP ALLOW GEO BLOCK
    if ($lan-ip = yes) {
    set $allowed_country yes;
    }
    
# COUNTRY GEO BLOCK 
    if ($allowed_country = no) {
    return 444;
    }

3. If you host several websites and want a different country block just add another with a different variable ($allowed_country2):

# COUNTRY GEO BLOCK 2
    if ($allowed_country2 = no) {
    return 444;
    }

As defaultis set to yes it will allow every country except the country codes set to no

 # GEO IP BLOCK DOMAIN 2
  map $geoip2_data_country_code $allowed_country2 {
   default yes;
    CN no; #China
    RU no; #Russia
    HK no; #Hong Kong
    IN no; #India
    IR no; #Iran
    VN no; #Vietnam
    TR no; #Turkey
    EG no; #Egypt
    MX no; #Mexico
    JP no; #Japan
    KR no; #South Korea
    KP no; #North Korea 🙂
    PE no; #Peru
    BR no; #Brazil
    UA no; #Ukraine
    ID no; #Indonesia
    TH no; #Thailand
 }

I made this list based on the Spamhaus statistics and Aakamai’s state of the internet report.

Blocked

You can test if it worked with a VPN or do a performance test from a location that is blocked here https://www.webpagetest.org/

TIP! This database gets updated!

By setting up a cronjob you can easily automate the update process.
I use the Unraid User Scripts plugin and set a cronjob to run every day but the GeoLite2 Country and City databases are updated on the first Tuesday of each month, so choose whatever suits your needs.
Click on Add New Script → Enter the name → Click on the name of the script and then Edit Script

Copy the script and set your download path. (Thank you Tronyx for the script!)
Since the new GeoLite2 tar file has a folder in it, I have edited the script to strip that folder and just extract the database in the folder. The reason I had to do this is because the folder has a date in its name that will change on every update.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

wget -O /tmp/GeoLite2-Country.tar.gz https://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLite2-Country.tar.gz

tar -xvf /tmp/GeoLite2-Country.tar.gz -C /tmp/ --wildcards "*.mmdb" --strip 1 

mv /tmp/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb /mnt/cache/appdata/letsencrypt/geolite2/

chown 911:911 /mnt/cache/appdata/letsencrypt/geolite2/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb

Set the schedule to Schedule Daily or whenever you’d like.

Click Run In Background and then Apply

Cloudflare

If you use Cloudflare you will need to add the following in nginx so that it won’t block the Cloudflare IP but the actual IP of the visitor. If you don’t do this you will get false positives.

set_real_ip_from 103.21.244.0/22;
set_real_ip_from 103.22.200.0/22;
set_real_ip_from 103.31.4.0/22;
set_real_ip_from 104.16.0.0/12;
set_real_ip_from 108.162.192.0/18;
set_real_ip_from 131.0.72.0/22;
set_real_ip_from 141.101.64.0/18;
set_real_ip_from 162.158.0.0/15;
set_real_ip_from 172.64.0.0/13;
set_real_ip_from 173.245.48.0/20;
set_real_ip_from 188.114.96.0/20;
set_real_ip_from 190.93.240.0/20;
set_real_ip_from 197.234.240.0/22;
set_real_ip_from 198.41.128.0/17;
set_real_ip_from 2400:cb00::/32;
set_real_ip_from 2606:4700::/32;
set_real_ip_from 2803:f800::/32;
set_real_ip_from 2405:b500::/32;
set_real_ip_from 2405:8100::/32;
set_real_ip_from 2c0f:f248::/32;
set_real_ip_from 2a06:98c0::/29;

real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For;

##
# CF Real IP
##
include /config/nginx/cf_real-ip.conf;
real_ip_header X-Forwarded-For;

#!/usr/bin/env bash

curl -s 'https://www.cloudflare.com/ips-v4' > /tmp/cf.txt
curl -s 'https://www.cloudflare.com/ips-v6' >> /tmp/cf.txt

sed 's/^/set_real_ip_from /' /tmp/cf.txt > /tmp/cf2.txt

sed -e 's/$/;/' /tmp/cf2.txt > /home/letsencrypt/config/nginx/cf_real-ip.conf

#!/bin/bash
curl -s 'https://www.cloudflare.com/ips-v4' > /tmp/cf.txt
curl -s 'https://www.cloudflare.com/ips-v6' >> /tmp/cf.txt

sed 's/^/set_real_ip_from /' /tmp/cf.txt > /tmp/cf2.txt

sed -e 's/$/;/' /tmp/cf2.txt > /mnt/user/appdata/letsencrypt/nginx/cf_real-ip.conf