Getting the country name of the client machine

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This is of course strictly server based unless you use java applets on the client communicating with the server.

Michel

ASKER

Meming, though the two links provided by you doesn't solve the purpose as they can recognize the country name based on domain name whereas i am talking about the client location and not the Web Site location. The function name myHostToCountryFunc() seems to return the country name. But where do i get this function and how can i use it in my ASP page.

Kamal Ranjan

Kamal: the IP address of the visitor will show where they are from on a reverse lookup. It is not the web site, but the ISP's location you get (or not, in case of com, org or int).

Michel

ASKER

Hi Michael,

I knew without you the problem wont get solved and that is why i posted it on javascript area though it is not merely a javascript problem. But i don't know the reverse lookup procedure for the IP which as you have said will give the ISP location. As such that's what i exactly want provided the user and the ISP are from same location(atleast from the same country as per my concern). I am doing a server end scripting in ASP and i can get the IP of the user out there but how to perform a reverse lookup.

Kamal Ranjan

ASKER

Thanks for the confidence ;-) However this IS a server side question and is more or less answered by meming.

You need a program to be called from asp installed on your server.

Meming posted one - here is here is a post from deja also mentioning this:

"This is the correct solution, but in many cases the host name cannot be
found by the server. I use a component called ASPDNS from
www.serverobjects.com. I then do a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address -
Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_HOST").

This would then translate the IP address into a host name xxx.demon.co.uk

It cant be relied on though as sometimes RDNS fails, plus some UK users for example have ISPs which use .com (Compuserve) or .net (UUNet) so you cannot relably detect the country 100% of the time."

Alternatively (and better in my opinion) is to ask.

I am danish but live in holland using the internation version of the english netscape. What page will you show me in what language?

If you provide localised data, I probably want a page about Holland, but perhaps I want it in English????

If you just want to know where they are form, use a stats server like nedstat - they will show you a breakdown on origin.

Michel

ASKER

Hi,

The links in www.serverobjects.com site are ASPDNS which gives you the gives the list of extension of domain name with the respective country and another facility to convert an IP to domain name. If this is reverse lookup then that's not exactly what i need. B'coz i don't care what his machine name is. I just want to get where he(user accessing my site) is from. Could you pl help me in this.

Thankx
Kamal Ranjan

I think you misunderstand.

Here is the documentation for the serverobject aspDNS :

You are not interested in DNSLookup but you want this:

2.ReverseDNSLookup(IPAddress - string)
e.g. ReverseDNSLookup ("255.255.255.0")
If the IP address is found in the DNS the return value is the hostname.

My hostname right now is
something.something.nl
meaning I sit in holland so you would do something like this (sorry for the javascript, I am not fluent in asp):

<script runat=server language=javascript">
dns = ReverseDNSLookup (Request.ServerVariables("Remote_Host"))

// following list is from
// http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/analog/domains.tab
cc= new Array()
cc["ad"] = "Andorra";
cc["ae"]= " United Arab Emirates";
..
..
..
cc["nf"] = "Norfolk Island";
cc["ng"] = "Nigeria";
cc["ni"] = "Nicaragua";
cc["nl"] = "Netherlands";
..
..
cc["zw"] = "Zimbabwe";

country = dns.substring(dns.lastIndexOf('.'))
Response.write('We welcome our visitor from' + cc[country]);
</SCRIPT>

PS: Meming's answer is in my opinion still valid...

Mplungian, thanks for doing all the explaination for me. I haven't been able to following my questions often for I have started my holidays.

Being the type who can't code in all languages without reference books, I can only provide the following semi-pseudo code for ASP at the moment( sorry if it's too javaish):

clientIP = Request.ServerVariables( "REMOTE_HOST" )
clientHostname = ReverseDNSLookup (clientIP)
country = myHostToCountryFunc(hostname)

function myHostToCountryFunc(domainFileName, clientHostname)

domainFileString = readInFileString(domainFileName)
' sorry. can't give details on this readInFileString function. hope this won't be a problem to you ;)

for each line in domainFileString
tokens = line.split(" ") 'or asp equivalent
countryDomain = tokens[0] 'ie zw
countryName = tokens(1) 'ie Zimbabwe
if clientHostname.endsWith("."&countryDomain) ' or asp equivalent
myHostToCountryFunc = countryDomain
end if
end for

end function

If the call is:
countryString = myHostToCountryFunc("domain.tab","dummyserver.dummydomain.zw")
The countryString will be set to:
"Zimbabwe"

Then it's time to say
"Where do you want to go today, my friend from Zimbabwe?

Hehe - we are into apologising for language ideosyncrazies today huh?
I kinda liked my associative array ;-)
Michel

After seeing my JFC/Swing program runs into 20mg range in memory, I have become much more careful about code efficiency. OO is cool, but not without a price (particularly when the price is set by MS ;\).

ASKER

I reapeat the links in www.serverobjects.com site are ASPDNS which gives you the gives the list of extension of domain name with the respective country and another facility to convert an IP to domain name. If this is reverse lookup then that's not exactly what i need. B'coz i don't care what his machine name is. I just want to get where he(user accessing my site) is from.

For eg. lets say you(Meming or Micheal) are accessing a page in https://www.experts-exchange.com then in that page i want to display where you are accessing this page. Here there isn't any concept of sites, which should be mapped to the .nl or .au strings to get country. Here the user(Meming or Micheal) may be sitting on a computer in Holland or lets say in US, then that country where he is currently accessing the page is to be displayed. I hope this time i am clear what i want.

Thankx
Kamal Ranjan

Kamalranjan, the ONLY way that you can figure out the location/country of the client machine is from the domain part of its hostname, whether you care or not.

I think your original question is clearer than your comments. To "map the country with the IP", you would have to use domain names, but not the "IP ranges". It's just how it works. Since IP/Domainname only reflects the logical structure of computer networks, the realtime physical locations of the computers are unknown without manual tracing or a GPS.

Since ASP can't always get the hostname of the client machine, IP addresses would have to be resolved into hostnames. That's why ASPDNS is in the picture. It's doesn't "exactly" do what you are requesting, but is what you would have to do to get the work done.

Let me put things in order for you again (as shown in my 2nd last comment):
1) ASP gets client IP (ie 200.2.3.4)
2) use ASPDNS to convert IP to domainname (ie my.co.zw)
3) use "zw" as the key to find its corresponding country name in the mapping file (ie Zimbabwe)
4) Now you can do exactly what you want -- displaying "Zimbabwe" in your HTML page

Shall we call it "Client IP to Country Name Translation".

(Having read your last comment several times, it's my turn to get confused now. It seems that you understood both of the problem and my answer, but just couldn't make the connection between the two. Hope the above explaination helps this time.)

ASKER

meming, i feel the client IP is assigned dynamically by the ISP while connecting to internet and this is assigned from a set of free IP's that the ISP must be having. If this is the case then these IP's should not have any domain name. Now as per your statements how will you get the second point done ie.
use ASPDNS to convert IP to domainname (ie my.co.zw)

I am sorry if i am unclear about certain things but i really can't understand as explained above as to how any domain name is fixed for a dynamically allocated IP address to the user by an ISP while connecting to internet for surfing.

Kamal Ranjan

My ISP actually assigns me an IP that can be resolved into a valid hostname. And I know AOL does the same. Don't know whether every ISP does it. You do have a point that I didn't consider. I believe this is one of the cases that an IP can't be resolved at all. I don't think you can get around this one. DNS has limitations.

As you might have seen, http://www.serverobjects.com/comp/aspdns.htm gives an example of the usage of the ASPDNS component in ASP (I modified it to do reverse lookup):

<%
Set DNSLook = Server.CreateObject("AspDNS.Lookup")
hostname = DNSLook.ReverseDNSLookup ("255.255.255.0")
Response.Write ("<b>The hostname of 255.255.255.0 is " & hostname & "</b>")
%>

My ip address resolves to something like
proxy.demon.nl because I go via the dutch proxy
it would be somethingelse.demon.nl if I didn't and if I chose to use the UK proxy for fun, the remote host I would present to your site would resolve to proxy.demon.co.uk

If what you want makes it possible for you to say to me
"Hi and welcome, visitor from Holland" when I visit your site, then we have fully understood what you want.

Michel

ASKER

Sorry for not being in touch for past four days but i think you R on right track michel. The word holland in the Welcome line is coming dynamically but we have to find that out how. Pl go ahead.

Kamal Ranjan

If we are on the right track, please try out meming's suggestion, download and install the ASPDNS thingy and follow instructions:

cc= new Array()
cc["ad"] = "Andorra";
cc["ae"]= " United Arab Emirates";
...
...
...
cc["nf"] = "Norfolk Island";
cc["ng"] = "Nigeria";
cc["ni"] = "Nicaragua";
cc["nl"] = "Netherlands";
...
...
cc["zw"] = "Zimbabwe";

<% Set DNSLook = Server.CreateObject("AspDNS.Lookup")
hostname = DNSLook.ReverseDNSLookup (Request.ServerVariables( "REMOTE_HOST" ) )
Response.Write ("var dns = '" & hostname & "';") %>

country = dns.substring(dns.lastIndexOf('.')+1);

document.write("Hi and welcome, visitor from " + cc[country]);

Michel

ASKER

That may work bcoz your proxy might be already having a unique IP assigned and thus a domain name too but as i already told same may not be the case with many internet surfers as there may not be a unique IP address assigned to their proxy machine or individual standalone machine as the case may be. In this case DNS resolution will give the physical name assigned to that machine or may be just nothing. And i feel most of the surfers are getting the IP dynamically by their ISP while they connect to the internet atleast here in India(as i am in India). For that case how will ASPDNS help?

Kamal Ranjan