How To Use Nginx as a Global Traffic Director on Debian or Ubuntu

Would it be possible to have it without the eu.xxx.com and just have everything on www.xxx.com. This would avoid SEO errors et cetera.

Configure Nginx and your virtual host

Add both of these lines in the /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file:

geoip_country /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat;
geoip_city /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat;

Then in the /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params add at the end:

fastcgiparam REDIRECTSTATUS 200;
fastcgiparam GEOIPADDR $remoteaddr;
fastcgiparam GEOIPCOUNTRYCODE $geoipcountrycode;
fastcgiparam GEOIPCOUNTRYNAME $geoipcountryname;

fastcgiparam GEOIPREGION $geoipregion;
fastcgiparam GEOIPREGIONNAME $geoipregionname;
fastcgiparam GEOIPCITY $geoipcity;
fastcgiparam GEOIPAREACODE $geoipareacode;
fastcgiparam GEOIPLATITUDE $geoiplatitude;
fastcgiparam GEOIPLONGITUDE $geoiplongitude;
fastcgiparam GEOIPPOSTALCODE $geoippostal_code;

Add these in your /etc/nginx/sites-availables/default OR your config file

map $geoip_city_country_code $closest_server {
  default www.example.com;
  DE      www.example.ch;
  CH      www.example.ch;
  AT      www.example.ch;
  LI      www.example.ch;
}


	server_name example.com
              www.example.com
              example.ch
              www.example.ch;

  if ($closest_server != $host) {
    rewrite ^ $scheme://$closest_server$request_uri break;
  }

this is working fine for me…

Regards

I have added the redirection it’s working fine. Asian user can’t see the EU version. I have 2 domains example.ch FOR EU Peoples & example.com FOR Other Peoples

I am in Asia and i want to access .ch But it’s redirecting me to .com. What should i do If i want to add option. Asian users can also see .ch and EU users can also see .com version. with one click and bottom (See EU or** ASIA** Version) without proxy.

Thanks

@julesmoretti good job! Thanks for sharing!

And with multisite handling:

map $geoip_city_continent_code $closest_server {

  AF      eu.domain.com;  #Africa
  AS      as.domain.com;  #Asia
  EU      eu.domain.com;  #Europe
  NA      us.domain.com;  #North America
  OC      as.domain.com;  #Oceania
  SA      us.domain.com;  #South America
}

# retoute http://domain.com and http://www.domain.com to http://us.domain.com
server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;

  server_name domain.com
              www.domain.com;

  return 301 http://us.domain.com$request_uri;
}

# handles
server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;

  root /var/www/domain.com/html;
  index index.php index.html index.htm;

  # Make site accessible from http://localhost/
  server_name  us.domain.com;

  # firs part of dual condition check.
  # checks in the incoming host (us.domain.com) is not equal to $closest_server depending on contry code
  if ($closest_server != $host) {
    set $test  A;
  }

  #second part of dual condition checks that the incoming host us.domain.com is the same as the server_name so that there is no messing around with other domain names
  if ($host ~* $server_name) {
    set $test  "${test}B";
  }

  # checks that the above 2 conditions are met and if so redirect to other global server with appropriate subdomain eu.domain.com or whatever you set up
  if ($test = AB) {
    rewrite ^ $scheme://$closest_server$request_uri break;
  }

  # otherwise you are at the closest server and so serve the data
  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
  }

Next step is to synchronizing files and databases across those servers ;)

I think I followed your instructions to the letter and it does not work… Or I am unable to getting it to work… Configured the DNS appropriately to point to the servers. Page loads at the specific locations. But when I add to my test.php page some code like this:

 <?php
     if (getenv(HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR)) {
        $pipaddress = getenv(HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR);
        $ipaddress = getenv(REMOTE_ADDR);
        echo "Your Proxy IP address is : ".$pipaddress. " (via $ipaddress) " ;
    } else {
        $ipaddress = getenv(REMOTE_ADDR);
        echo "Your IP address is : $ipaddress";
    }
    $country = getenv(GEOIP_COUNTRY_NAME);
    $country_code = getenv(GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE);
    echo "<br/>Your country : $country ( $country_code ) ";
?>

<?php
$geoip_country_code = getenv(GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE);
/*
$geoip_country_code = $_SERVER['GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE']; // works as well
*/
$geoip_country_code3 = getenv(GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE3);
$geoip_country_name = getenv(GEOIP_COUNTRY_NAME);
$geoip_city_country_code = getenv(GEOIP_CITY_COUNTRY_CODE);
$geoip_city_country_code3 = getenv(GEOIP_CITY_COUNTRY_CODE3);
$geoip_city_country_name = getenv(GEOIP_CITY_COUNTRY_NAME);
$geoip_region = getenv(GEOIP_REGION);
$geoip_city = getenv(GEOIP_CITY);
$geoip_postal_code = getenv(GEOIP_POSTAL_CODE);
$geoip_city_continent_code = getenv(GEOIP_CITY_CONTINENT_CODE);
$geoip_latitude = getenv(GEOIP_LATITUDE);
$geoip_longitude = getenv(GEOIP_LONGITUDE);
echo 'country_code: '.$geoip_country_code.'<br>';
echo 'country_code3: '.$geoip_country_code3.'<br>';
echo 'country_name: '.$geoip_country_name.'<br>';
echo 'city_country_code: '.$geoip_city_country_code.'<br>';
echo 'city_country_code3: '.$geoip_city_country_code3.'<br>';
echo 'city_country_name: '.$geoip_city_country_name.'<br>';
echo 'region: '.$geoip_region.'<br>';
echo 'city: '.$geoip_city.'<br>';
echo 'postal_code: '.$geoip_postal_code.'<br>';
echo 'city_continent_code: '.$geoip_city_continent_code.'<br>';
echo 'latitude: '.$geoip_latitude.'<br>';
echo 'longitude: '.$geoip_longitude.'<br>';
?>

All I get is:

Your IP address is : 74.62.192.83
Your country : ( ) country_code: 
country_code3: 
country_name: 
city_country_code: 
city_country_code3: 
city_country_name: 
region: 
city: 
postal_code: 
city_continent_code: 
latitude: 
longitude:

So it seems not to be working appropriately. I would love some update or clarification as this is what I need for a client. My configurations for each servers are smallest droplet size with Ubuntu and LAMP.

And this is the information I altered in the nginx virtual site conf of the default server which I want to be eu.mypersonaldomain.extension:

map $geoip_city_continent_code $closest_server {
  default mypersonaldomain.extension;
  US      us.mypersonaldomain.extension;
  AS      as.mypersonaldomain.extension;
#  EU      eu.mypersonaldomain.extension;
}

server {
        server_name     mypersonaldomain.extension
                        wwwmypersonaldomain.extension
                        us.mypersonaldomain.extension
                        as.mypersonaldomain.extension
                        eu.mypersonaldomain.extension;

        if ($closest_server != $host) {
          rewrite ^ $scheme://$closest_server$request_uri break;
        }

        listen 80 eu.mypersonaldomain.extension;
        listen [::]:80 mypersonaldomain.extension ipv6only=on;

        root /var/www/html;
        index index.html index.htm;

        # Make site accessible from http://localhost/
        eu.mypersonaldomain.extension localhost;

Also within the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ I renamed the config file to eu.mypersonaldomain.extension

and run:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/eu.mypersonaldomain.extension /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/eu.mypersonaldomain.extension

And of course restarted a bunch of times… too

Thank you for your help…

What would be the way to redirect to a subdirectory for a specific language, like /en/ , /fr/ …?

Great post!

Just would like to left a quick note: if you are downloading the GeoIP database from http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz, you don’t need to install the geoip-database package via apt-get too.

Great post!

Just would like to put this quick note: if you are downloading the GeoIP database from http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz, you don’t need to install the geoip-database package via apt-get too.

its dose not work for me . i dont know why … did all the steps but nothing i keep having errors