joomla:iplocation:installation

Installation and Setup of IP-Location for Joomla!

Please make a Donation to the IpInfoDB Service when using its Data or API with the IP-Location Extension to support the future of that service.

Unpack the Installation Package Archive on your Local Computer. The Archive will contain 2 Installation Files, one for the Component (com_iplocation…) and one for the optional Frontpage Module (mod_iplocation…).

Use the Extension Manager to upload and install the IP-Location Component and Module:



Using the Plugin Manager, list the Plugin Types of System. Publish the IP-Location Extension and position it in the topmost order of all the installed System Plugins:



By default IP-Location is using Remote API Queries to IpInfoDB to perform the geolocation of IP-Addresses. You may want to import the IpInfoDB IP Location Database into your Joomla! Database to take off load from the service and overcome the IpInfoDB Query Limit.

IP-Location delivers with a Frontpage Module that shows the detect Geolocation of the Client Browsers IP-Address. To use this Module, publish it to any of your Template positions. This module has no settings and relies on the data of the IP-Location Component.


As of January 2012 this function is deprecated, as the IPInfoDB service has seized to provide downloadable IP-Location data.

Use the Remote Request API access method to the IPInfoDB service instead.

We recommend to import the Geolocation Data in the Database of your Joomla! site, instead of using the Remote API Queries. Especially this is recommended if your site has a medium to high traffic and visitor count.

There are 2 possibilities for importing the Location Database:

  1. To import the SQL files using a SQL-Tool like PHPMyAdmin
  2. To import the CSV files using the IP-Location Import function in the Joomla! Administrator



For full function of IP-Location City, Country and Timezone data is required to be imported:

  1. For Cities: Make your choice to use the City Small or the City Complete City Database in SQL or CSV Format
  2. For Countries: Use the Country Complete with One Table Database in SQL or CSV Format
  3. For Timezone Data: Download the Timezone related data in SQL or CSV Format
  4. Unpack the downloaded files on your local computer.



Always use the 'One-Table' version of the City or Country Data.

  1. Use PHPMyAdmin or a similar SQL-Tool for the Database Operations.
  2. Drop any existing City Table named iplocation_ip_group_city or prepended by the Table Prefix of your Joomla! Database (e.g. jos_iplocation_ip_group_city).
  3. Drop any existing Country Table named iplocation_ip_group_country or prepended by the Table Prefix of your Joomla! Database (e.g. jos_iplocation_ip_group_country).
  4. Import the City or Country Data. The SQL-File names are:
    City (small): ipinfodb_one_table_small.sql
    City (complete): ipinfodb_one_table_full.sql
    Country (complete): ipinfodb_one_table_full_country.sql
  5. Import the Timezone Data. The SQL-File names are: fips_regions.sql, timezones.sql, timezones_data.csv
  6. Rename the City Table from ip_group_city to iplocation_ip_group_city prepending any Table Prefix your Joomla! Database Tables may carry (e.g. jos_ resulting in jos_iplocation_ip_group_city).
  7. Rename the Country Table from ip_group_city to iplocation_ip_group_city prepending any Table Prefix your Joomla! Database Tables may carry (e.g. jos_ resulting in jos_iplocation_ip_group_city).
  8. Rename the Timezone Data Table from fips_regions to iplocation_fips_regions prepending any Table Prefix your Joomla! Database Tables may carry (e.g. jos_ resulting in jos_iplocation_fips_regions).
  9. Rename the Timezones Table from timezones to iplocation_timezones prepending any Table Prefix your Joomla! Database Tables may carry (e.g. jos_ resulting in jos_iplocation_timezones).
  10. Rename the Timezones Data Table from timezones_data to iplocation_timezones_data prepending any Table Prefix your Joomla! Database Tables may carry (e.g. jos_ resulting in jos_iplocation_timezones_data).



Always use the 'One-Table' version of the City or Country Data.

  1. Copy the CSV files for the City and/or Country data to the tmp directory of your Joomla! installation (e.g. /home/sites/myjoomla/tmp).
  2. Go into the Administrator of your Joomla! site, select Components » IP Location. A short overview will show you the import files found:

  3. If you copy only the City data file, only the City data will get imported.
  4. If you copy only the Country data file, only the Country data will get imported.
  5. If you copy only the Timezones data files, only the Timezones data will get imported.
  6. Imports may take a long time: Never cancel the page load in your Browser or close the Page. By doing that the import will be intercepted and your server may be left in high utilization until the import has completed server-side.
  7. Data Imports have no PHP Execution Time Limit. This means the data import page will not timeout and appear only once the import has been completed.
  8. Start the Import with Import ipinfodb.com Data
  9. On completion of the data import a summary page is shown:



Perform as for Importing the IpInfoDB Data into the Joomla! Database to update the IP Location data in your Database.

After completion of the installation process, you may want to adapt the Settings of IP-Location to your application.

Things to know

  • IP-Location does store the IP Address and related Location Data in the current Joomla Session. This to reduce the requests to the IpInfoDB site or the Database. As a result you may need to close and reopen your browser in case you have changed settings and want to test them.
  • The IP-Location and Location Data is only determined once while start of the session. Therefore while testing your site or changing settings of IP-Location you may need to close and restart your Browser to initiate a new client session with Joomla to reinitalize the IP-Location data.
  • When using the IpInfoDB API, IP-Location will create a outgoing connection to http://www.ipinfodb.com and http://backup.ipinfodb.com. In case your server is protected by a Firewall, you may need to create Firewall rules to allow outgoing connections to these addresses.