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Long time since my last technical post on this blog. Today, we will go through the installation of the GeoIP libraries (from MaxMind) feature linked with a very common and well known DNS server (bind9 (from ISC)). Before going any further in the labs, please note that I do not consider the GeoIP patch “feature complete”, since it does cover all all GeoIP type (only countries), does not apply to bind-9.5.x and the install process isn’t “fine-tuned” as it should be.
NOTE: I will be releasing, this week-end, a new, enhanced, patch covering those issues. So, lets go on.
Why this lab ?
Simply because distributed infrastructure are common sight and load-balancing traffic across multiple web load-balancer (yeah, I know, balancing on balancer) can sometime be very tricky. Solution such as round robin DNS is, at most, a “best effort” mechanism. Network architects with valid demographic statistics will be able to offer “nearest server” and enhanced experience through geo-localization. This also allows to create a poor man’s CDN (Content Delivery Network) without having to learn / deploy very complex infrastructures.
Installation
We start by installing MaxMind’s GeoIP libraries. It comes with a free database of ip/countries. We follow by retrieving Bind for ISC’s server and applying the patch to link the 2 together. This is the patch I’ll be enhancing.
#changing to src directory
cd /usr/local/src
#getting geoip libraries
wget http://www.maxmind.com/download/geoip/api/c/GeoIP-1.4.5.tar.gz
tar zxf GeoIP-1.4.5.tar.gz
cd GeoIP-1.4.5
#configure & install of libraries
./configure ; make ; make install
#getting bind-9.4.3
wget http://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind9/9.4.3/bind-9.4.3.tar.gz
tar zxf bind-9.4.3
#getting geodns (geoip binding to dns software)
wget http://www.caraytech.com/geodns/patch.diff
#we patch bind
cd bind-9.4.3
patch -p1 < ../patch.diff
#we configure bind with the new libs. (On one line & this procedure will change with the new patch)
CFLAGS=”-I/usr/local/include” LDFLAGS=”-L/usr/local/lib -lGeoIP” ./configure –prefix=/usr/local/bind
#we compile + install bind.
make ; make install
Configuration
We now have a default installation of a patched BIND9 server & GeoIP libraries. The next step is to create configuration files. I will not be going into the big details here, plenties of how-to are available. The principe of GeoIP is matching-clients through country code, not only IP – this is the value of the patch we applied.
/usr/local/bind/etc/named.conf
options {
directory “/usr/local/bind/var/bind”;
listen-on-v6 { none; };
pid-file “/usr/local/bind/var/run/named/named.pid”;
};
view “us” {
// Match clients from US
match-clients { country_US; };
recursion no;
zone “example.com” {
type master;
file “pri/example-us.db”;
};
zone “.” IN {
type hint;
file “named.ca”;
};
};
view “ca” {
// match from Canada
match-clients { country_CA; };
recursion no;
zone “example.com” {
type master;
file “pri/example-ca.db”;
};
zone “.” IN {
type hint;
file “named.ca”;
};
};
view “other” {
// Match all others
match-clients { any; };
recursion no;
zone “example.com” {
type master;
file “pri/example-other.db”;
};
zone “.” IN {
type hint;
file “named.ca”;
};
};
/usr/local/bind/var/named.ca ; this file can be retrieved from almost anywere. Google it.
And we also need zone definitons:
/usr/local/bind/var/bind/pri/example-us.db
/usr/local/bind/var/bind/pri/example-ca.db
/usr/local/bind/var/bind/pri/example-other.db
Conclusion
At this point, you have a BIND server running on your server with views defined following the dns-client country. Using the following command (since I do not really own example.com) will give different result if you are in the USA or Canada. “dig @air0.labsphoenix.com test.example.com“. Btw: the “dig” command is part of dnsutils package. Have fun!
tagged with : , cloud computing, cloudmaster, consultant, dns, freesoftware, geoip, GNU/Linux, labsphoenix, opensource, sysadmin, Technique | permalink
4 Responses to “[labsphoenix] GeoIP patch to BIND”
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Yan Morin Says:
November 20th, 2008 at 9:23 pmTrès intéressant, j’essaie ça dès la semaine prochaine.
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pascal.charest Says:
November 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pmCe que j’apprecie particulièrement est la simplicité de fonctionnement. La patch fait environ 30 lignes et la modification s’effectue très facilement.
Comme je dis dans mon post, je devrais être en mesure de sortir un patch un peu plus etoffé que celui ci. Au minimum, je veux integrer la librairies au configure process et faire l’addition du geo-locate par ville.
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