Using IPinfo's MMDB data downloads with Golang

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Using IPinfo’s MMDB data downloads with Golang

The .mmdb file format is a special binary database type requiring specific packages/libraries to read. The .mmdb file format facilitates extremely fast IP lookup operations.

I highly recommend reading this article before getting started: How to choose the best file format for your IPinfo database?

0. Prerequisite: Downloading the IPinfo IP database in the .mmdb format

Before you begin, download the .mmdb format data. Keep this database in our same directory.

For this example, I use the IPinfo IP to Privacy Detection Database. IPinfo IP to Privacy Detection Database is stored as standard_privacy.mmdb.

:link: The database schema for the IPinfo IP to Privacy Detection Database: Privacy Detection Database - IPinfo.io

1. Installation of maxminddb-golang

After running go mod init, you must install the maxminddb-golang. This library will perform the IP lookup operations.

Please note that the required package is an MMDB reader, not an API package.

To install the package, run the following command:

go get github.com/oschwald/maxminddb-golang

You can find the documentation for the package here: maxminddb package - github.com/oschwald/maxminddb-golang - Go Packages

2. Usage

After the installation of the maxminddb-golang package, you can use the following code to lookup the IPinfo results from the MMDB file.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"net"

	"github.com/oschwald/maxminddb-golang"
)

// Refer to the IPinfo database documentation to create the struct: https://ipinfo.io/developers/database-types
type IPinfoResult struct {
	Hosting string `maxminddb:"hosting"`
	Proxy   string `maxminddb:"proxy"`
	Tor     string `maxminddb:"tor"`
	Vpn     string `maxminddb:"vpn"`
	Relay   string `maxminddb:"relay"`
	Service string `maxminddb:"service"`
}

func main() {
	// Replace the following with the path to your IPinfo IP database.
	// My IP to Privacy Detection database is available in the same directory
	dbPath := "./standard_privacy.mmdb"

	// Open the MaxMind DB file
	db, err := maxminddb.Open(dbPath)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	defer db.Close()

	// Provide an IP address that you want to lookup
	// For example, I am looking up the random IP address
	ip := net.ParseIP("188.241.83.0")

	// Create a struct to store the result
	var result IPinfoResult

	// Lookup the IP address in the MaxMind DB
	err = db.Lookup(ip, &result)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// Print the entire result payload
	fmt.Printf("%+v\n", result)

	// Print the individual result payload
	fmt.Printf("Hosting: %s\n", result.Hosting)
	fmt.Printf("Proxy: %s\n", result.Proxy)
	fmt.Printf("Tor: %s\n", result.Tor)
	fmt.Printf("VPN: %s\n", result.Vpn)
	fmt.Printf("Relay: %s\n", result.Relay)
	fmt.Printf("Anonymous IP Service Name: %s\n", result.Service)

}

Output:

{Hosting:true Proxy: Tor: Vpn:true Relay: Service:Windscribe}
Hosting: true
Proxy: 
Tor: 
VPN: true
Relay: 
Anonymous IP Service Name: Windscribe

Some points to note:

  • If the IP address is not available, for instance, if you look for a non-anonymous IP address in the IP to Privacy database, you will get empty results similar to this:
{Hosting: Proxy: Tor: Vpn: Relay: Service:}
Hosting: 
Proxy: 
Tor: 
VPN: 
Relay: 
Anonymous IP Service Name:

  • You might need to convert the string boolean values in the database to bool types.

  • To create the IPinfoResult struct, you should refer to our database schema documentation: Database Types - IPinfo.io