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This is a community guide and is not officially supported. If you have any issues, please reach out to the author.
This automation lets your system automatically download & upgrade the GeoLite2-Country database from Maxmind to use for geoblocking on your Pangolin host. It’s utilizing Maxmind’s geoipupdate Docker container to achieve this. Maxmind’s service is free of charge for development, personal or community use. Quote

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Table of Contents

  1. Requirements
  2. Maxmind Account
  3. API key creation
  4. Modification of Pangolin’s docker-compose.yml
  5. Modification of Pangolin’s config.yml

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1. Requirements

  • A Maxmind account for API access
  • Pangolin version 1.11.0 or higher

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2. Maxmind Account

To be able to use Maxmind’s service you need to request access to the GeoLite2 database and create an account on their website. After you successfully created an account visit the mainpage again and login to your new account.

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3. API key creation

The next step is to create an API key for geoipupdate. You’ll find an entry called Manage license keys in the menu on the left side. Head to this page and click on Generate new license key.
Maxmind's Manage license keys page

Maxmind's Manage license keys page

Give your new key a name. E.g. Pangolin.
Maxmind's key creation page

Choose a name for the key

After your key got created the webpage will show you your Account ID as well as the API key. Save the key now because it can only be seen once. Don’t panic if something goes wrong, you can easily create new keys.
The key got created successfully

Key successfully created

After you clicked on Return to list you should see an overview of your keys bundled with some metadata.

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4. Modification of Pangolin’s docker-compose.yml

Now login to your Pangolin host and navigate to /pangolin in your user directory: 
cd pangolin
Shut down Pangolin with: 
docker compose down
Open docker-compose.yml with your favorite text editor. E.g. nano: 
nano docker-compose.yml
Append this Docker compose service at the end of your stack and add your Account ID as well as your API key you created in the last step: 
services:
  (...)
  geoipupdate:
    container_name: geoipupdate
    image: ghcr.io/maxmind/geoipupdate
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - 'GEOIPUPDATE_ACCOUNT_ID='					# Account ID
      - 'GEOIPUPDATE_LICENSE_KEY='					# API key
      - 'GEOIPUPDATE_EDITION_IDS=GeoLite2-Country'	# Which db should be downloaded
      - 'GEOIPUPDATE_FREQUENCY=72'					# Update intervall in hours
    volumes:
      - './config/GeoLite2:/usr/share/GeoIP'

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Note

If you use the standard Pangolin deployment you shouldn’t need to modify the path. This is the bare minimum to run the container. There are other optional environment variables available. Have a look at their docs! Save and close the file, but don’t restart the stack yet!

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5. Modification of Pangolin’s config.yml

Navigate to /config within the same folder and open it with a text editor. 
cd config
Add this line to the server object 
server:
  maxmind_db_path: "./config/GeoLite2/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb"
This entry tells the Pangolin application where to find the database. Save and close the file then navigate to the pangolin folder one level higher. Restart your Pangolin stack with: 
docker compose up -d
Et voilà, you are now able to define country rules for your ressources! 🏁 btw: you can use this exact database for your Traefik dashboard too -> Community Guide