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NOTE: NetGeo has not been actively maintained since 1999, and this will probably not change in the foreseeable future. As a result, there are several known major issues affecting accuracy and service availability. Please be warned that NetGeo may give wildly incorrect results, especially for recently allocated or re-assigned IP addresses.

Also, domain-name lookups are no longer supported.
Please see a list of NetGeo alternatives.

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While it is expected that most users of the NetGeo service will access it via programming APIs. The CGI interface is documented here, however we do hope you'll find the programming APIs a better interface than talking directly to the server.

The server rate-limits access to 30 lookups in 30 seconds from a given source IP address. The server does not use a rolling average. If more than 30 seconds have elapsed since the last query time, then 30 lookup credits are given and the query time is set to the current time. Otherwise while credits remain each additional lookup subtracts a credit. Once all credits are exhausted, any additional lookup attempts fail and the query time is set to the current time. An important result of this algorithm is that if too many lookups are performed in an interval, the time until new lookups can be requested is measured from the most recent request. This means that once the limit is exceeded, you must wait at least 30 seconds before trying again, otherwise you can be locked out indefinitely. Since the limit is enforced at IP address granularity, it is suggested that on machines with multiple NetGeo users that an exponential backoff with a random shift be used when the time limit is exceeded.

Currently array lookups of N items are being counted as [(N-1)/10 + 1] individual lookups, to encourage usage of the array lookup APIs.

Educational or Research Institution Use of CAIDA NetGeo Server

NetGeo has been licensed to Ixia, a commercial entity who markets a geographic location product called IxMapping. (See Ixia's IxMapping). Ixia's IxMapping services is designed to assist Internet content providers, e-commerce firms, ISPs, and others to track the geographic location of Internet users, destination servers, and provider hardware.

University researchers interested in access to GLS services are encouraged to contact ixmapping_support@ixiacom.com.

If you are from an educational or research institution and have need for different access policies to CAIDA's NetGeo server , please email netgeo-info @ caida.org to discuss overriding the rate-limit. We would like people using NetGeo in research projects to provide the following information, which helps us both in making NSF aware of the utility of the project to the community, as well as planning future enhancements to the NetGeo service:

1. basic description of the project, including, if possible, duration, how it is funded and what deliverables are related to NetGeo
2. whether you're interested in lat-long information or name-based information (basically, what kind of queries are of greatest interest to you)
3. how many queries per interval (minute, day, week) you need
4. if you are trying to process/analyze things in real-time or from traces/logfiles, for which array (batch) lookups may be viable/preferable
5. notifications of any reports/publications you have that use NetGeo data
6. if you're interested in potential collaborations with CAIDA on Internet mapping related projects

NetGeo Licensing

NetGeo technology has been licensed to Ixia, who markets a geographic location product called IxMapping\ . (See http://www.ipmapper.com/). Companies interested in acquiring this product should contact sales@ixiacom.com.

Companies interested in getting additional information on this product should contact sales@ixiacom.com.