Only allow certain countries traffic access specific page

Question

I am using --with-http_geoip_module for identify traffic. There are some pages that I only want certain country to access. Here is configuration:

For http

 http{
    geoip_country  /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat; # the country IP database
    map $geoip_country_code $allowed_country {
            default 0;
            US 1;
            UK 1;
            HK 1; 

     }

  }

The location directive:

location = /testing {
            if ($allowed_country = 0) {

                    return 301 ;
              }
    }

The problem is when I using US/HK IPs, I get a 404 error. What did I done wrong?

UPDATE

Here is my complete conf file:

http {
include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type  application/octet-stream;

log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

geoip_country  /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat; # the country IP database

map $geoip_country_code $allowed_country {
        default 0;
        US 1;
        UK 1;
        HK 1; 

 }
sendfile        on;
#tcp_nopush     on;

#keepalive_timeout  0;
keepalive_timeout  65;

#gzip  on;

index   index.html index.htm;

# Load modular configuration files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory.
# See http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#include
# for more information.
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;

server {
    listen       80 default_server;
    server_name  localhost;
    root         /var/www/html;

    include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;

    location / {
        index index.php index.cgi index.pl index.html index.xhtml index.htm index.shtml;
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /40x.html
    #
    error_page  404              /404.html;
    location = /40x.html {
    }

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
    }

    #ban specifc country
    location = /testing {
        if ($allowed_country = 0) {

                return 301 ;
          }
     }


    location ~ \.php$ {
        ### SET GEOIP Variables ###
        fastcgi_param GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE $geoip_country_code;
        fastcgi_param GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE3 $geoip_country_code3;
        fastcgi_param GEOIP_COUNTRY_NAME $geoip_country_name;

        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.*)$;
        if (!-f $document_root$fastcgi_script_name) {
        return 404;

        }
            try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            include fastcgi.conf;
            include conf/site.conf;
    } 

}
 }

Basically I want only visitor from US, UK and HK access /testing page.

Answer 1

Let's do it from beginning. As you didn't said what is your OS, all steps below will be separated for both Debian/Ubuntu and CentOS/Fedora/RHEL.

1. CONNECT TO SERVER:

First of all, connect to your server by terminal/console (in linux - ssh username@server_ip) or Putty (in windows).

---

2. VERIFY GEOIP MODULE:

As you have already installed NGINX check if it is compiled with the HttpGeoipModule:

CentOS/Fedora/RHEL and Debian/Ubuntu:

 nginx -V

And then try to find --with-http_geoip_module. If it exists then you can continue, else it means you have't compiled NGINX with GeoIP Module.

---

3. INSTALL GEOIP DATABASE:

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install geoip-database libgeoip1

CentOS/Fedora/RHEL:

It is in EPEL repository, so you should enable it first:

CENTOS 4:

32bit:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/4/i386/epel-release-4-10.noarch.rpm
rpm –Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-4.rpm

64bit:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/4/x86_64/epel-release-4-10.noarch.rpm
rpm –Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-4.rpm

CENTOS 5:

32bit:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
rpm –Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-5.rpm

64bit:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/5/x86_64/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
rpm –Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-5.rpm

CENTOS 6:

32bit:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm 

64bit:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm 

CENTOS 7:

64bit:

rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/e/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm 

Then:

yum install geoip geoip-devel -y

---

4. Update GeoIP Database

After installing GeoIP Module, the database will be stored in /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat but it could be outdated. So, let's update:

mv /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat_bk

cd /usr/share/GeoIP/

wget http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCountry/GeoIP.dat.gz

gunzip GeoIP.dat.gz

Or, alternatively, you can download manually the database from http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCountry/GeoIP.dat.gz, extract on you computer and upload in /usr/share/GeoIP/ as GeoIP.dat. Don't forget to make a backup of old GeoIP.dat if you want to make as here.

---

5. Configuring NGINX with GeoIP

Open /etc/nginx/nginx.conf (Ubuntu/Debian) or /etc/nginx/conf/nginx.conf (CentOS/Fedora/RHEL) and place this inside http {}, before any include:

geoip_country /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat;
map $geoip_country_code $allowed_country {
    default no;
    US yes;
    UK yes;
    HK yes;
}

This doesn't block countries. We only set $allowed_country.

Now, please open your virtualhost to configure (/etc/nginx/conf.d/YOURDOMAINHERE.conf) - place this inside server {}:

location /testing/ {
    if ($allowed_country = no) {
        return 403;
    }
}

/testing/ is your website path which is accessible from US, UK and HK.

---

6. Restarting NGINX

/etc/init.d/nginx reload

---

It was tested on both CentOS and Debian VPS and it is working.

Hope this will help you.