pygeoipupdate

Python client for updating MaxMind GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases.

Description

pygeoipupdate is a program that downloads and updates GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 binary MMDB databases from MaxMind. This is a Python port of the official Go version.

Installation

pip install pygeoipupdate

Or with uv:

uv add pygeoipupdate

Quick Start

1. Get your Account ID and License Key from your MaxMind account page.

2. Create a configuration file or set environment variables:

   export GEOIPUPDATE_ACCOUNT_ID=12345
   export GEOIPUPDATE_LICENSE_KEY=your_license_key
   export GEOIPUPDATE_EDITION_IDS="GeoLite2-City GeoLite2-Country"
   

3. Run pygeoipupdate:

   pygeoipupdate
   

Usage

Command Line

# Using a config file
pygeoipupdate -f /etc/GeoIP.conf

# Using environment variables
pygeoipupdate

# Verbose output
pygeoipupdate -v

# JSON output (for scripting)
pygeoipupdate -o

# Parallel downloads
pygeoipupdate --parallelism 4

Python API

import asyncio
from pathlib import Path

from pygeoipupdate import Config, Updater

config = Config(
    account_id=12345,
    license_key="your_license_key",
    edition_ids=["GeoLite2-City", "GeoLite2-Country"],
    database_directory=Path("/var/lib/GeoIP"),
)

async def main():
    async with Updater(config) as updater:
        results = await updater.run()
        for result in results:
            if result.was_updated:
                print(f"Updated {result.edition_id}")
            else:
                print(f"{result.edition_id} is up to date")

asyncio.run(main())

Loading Configuration from File

from pathlib import Path

from pygeoipupdate import Config, Updater

config = Config.from_file(config_file=Path("/etc/GeoIP.conf"))

async with Updater(config) as updater:
    await updater.run()

Configuration

Configuration can be provided via (in order of precedence):

1. CLI arguments
2. Environment variables
3. Configuration file
4. Default values

Configuration File Format

# GeoIP.conf

# Your MaxMind account ID
AccountID 12345

# Your MaxMind license key
LicenseKey your_license_key

# Space-separated list of edition IDs to download
EditionIDs GeoLite2-City GeoLite2-Country GeoLite2-ASN

# Directory to store database files
DatabaseDirectory /var/lib/GeoIP

# Optional: Number of parallel downloads (default: 1)
Parallelism 4

# Optional: Preserve file modification times
PreserveFileTimes 1

# Optional: Retry duration for failed requests (default: 5m)
RetryFor 10m

Environment Variables

CLI Options

pygeoipupdate [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -f, --config-file PATH    Path to the configuration file
  -d, --database-directory PATH
                            Directory to store database files
  -v, --verbose             Enable verbose output
  -o, --output              Output download results as JSON
  --parallelism INTEGER     Number of parallel downloads
  -V, --version             Show the version and exit
  -h, --help                Show this message and exit

Default Paths

Unix/Linux/macOS

• Configuration file: /usr/local/etc/GeoIP.conf
• Database directory: /usr/local/share/GeoIP

Windows

• Configuration file: %SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\MaxMind\GeoIPUpdate\GeoIP.conf
• Database directory: %SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\MaxMind\GeoIPUpdate\GeoIP

Error Handling

When using the Python API, pygeoipupdate raises specific exceptions:

• GeoIPUpdateError — Base exception for all errors.
  • ConfigError — Invalid configuration.
  • DownloadError — Download failure.
    • AuthenticationError — Invalid account ID or license key.
    • HTTPError — HTTP error with .status_code and .body attributes.
  • LockError — Could not acquire the lock file.
  • HashMismatchError — Downloaded file hash mismatch (.expected, .actual).

Running as a Cron Job

To keep your databases up to date, we recommend running pygeoipupdate at least twice per week. Here's an example cron entry:

# Run twice a week on Wednesday and Sunday at 3:00 AM
0 3 * * 0,3 /usr/local/bin/pygeoipupdate

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• A MaxMind account with a license key

Bug Reports

Please report bugs by filing an issue with our GitHub issue tracker.

Versioning

This library uses Semantic Versioning.

Copyright and License

This software is Copyright (c) 2025 - 2026 by MaxMind, Inc.

This is free software, licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 or the MIT License, at your option.

Links

• MaxMind Developer Portal
• GeoIP2 Database Documentation
• Go version (geoipupdate)