#How to deploy geoipdate on Railway?

94 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

stray breach
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geoipupdate is a program that allows you to get a local copy of an IP database so you can inspect a IP address and get a rough idea of where your users are coming from. It's like a free version of the IP API services

tardy tulipBOT
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Project ID: N/A

stray breach
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It looks like I have possibly several options

Use dedicated Docker thing
Get binary from GitHub
Use Nix package

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How would you got about figuring out which methodology to pursue? My impression is that if geoipupdate is supposed to be a long lived service, you would want to install it on a service in a way that doesn't reinstall it everytime meaning it's a part of the deploy, so that could mean Nix or Docker

frail pumice
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why not just run an in code cron job to check for updates and download if needed, storing the database in a volume

stray breach
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I did that yesterday, it's a ton of boilerplate and geoipupdate is implemented in Go the same language I wrote my thing in

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I figured I'd try the prescribed solution instead of reinvent the wheel

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But I'm pretty confused about using Nix or Docker, It seems like Nix is supposed to be easier but it just seems more convoluted to me

frail pumice
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so geoipupdate the binary is a long lived process and just downloads the database and any updates when it comes out?

stray breach
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Yes

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The website doesn't state when the database updates to geoipupdate would probably just handle all the ambiguity for you

frail pumice
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so you need a way to run that in parallel with your go app?

stray breach
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Yeah it comes with a conf file for cron

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So I guess what I'm asking is they distribute both a binary in GitHub and a Docker

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But I can't SSH into a service right?

frail pumice
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correct

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is it a long lived process or no?

stray breach
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Yes

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Well actually

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No if it uses a cron job

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No it probably isn't

frail pumice
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yeah exactly

stray breach
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My point was that it's supposed to live in a VM that doesn't get shutdown because it has it's own cron job

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Not supposed to be an ephemeral serverless thing

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So if there's a binary on GitHub should I just download the right the architecture and commit it to git so it shows up in the Railway VM or Docker copy it or something else you think?

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If I could SSH into Railway I could set it up once but that doesn't seem to be available

frail pumice
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even if you could ssh into the service and set it up, it wont not be setup next time you deploy

stray breach
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I also don't know how I'd know which binary to select from assuming it's Linux

geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_386.deb
2.09 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_386.rpm
2.16 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_386.tar.gz
2.09 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_amd64.deb
2.21 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_amd64.rpm
2.28 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
2.2 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_arm64.deb
2.04 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_arm64.rpm
2.09 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_arm64.tar.gz
2.03 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_armv6.deb
2.09 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_armv6.rpm
2.14 MB
Jan 9
geoipupdate_6.1.0_linux_armv6.tar.gz
stray breach
frail pumice
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are you using nixpacks?

stray breach
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I have. I can

frail pumice
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are you using nixpacks in this app of yours?

stray breach
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I can, this is a standalone service, it can use whatever

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This is meant to be a microservice so I can ping users IP and store it in their session info. First step is getting the db stuff under control the rest is easy

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If I use Nix I assume I just list it as a dependency like ["go", "geoipupdate"] and theoretically it is in my path or something?

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I am skiddish on Nix because if I changed providers with me I can't assume Nix will work somewhere else

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So having the binary download on initialization or just using Docker seems to make more sense

frail pumice
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you would want to do array extending ['...', 'geoipupdate'] dont specify go since that would be added by railway automatically

frail pumice
stray breach
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As far as the conf for the cron job it gives you

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I just hope I put it in the right place and the VM picks it up?

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It almost seems easier to reinvent the wheel here

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Sorry for all the questions, deployments are not my strength

frail pumice
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also they arent really VMs they are containers

stray breach
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In that case it sounds like I should just stick with my hand rolled code

frail pumice
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you really shouldnt assume anything will just work

stray breach
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I know lmao

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OK but assuming I went with the binary, is there a way to know what platform specifically to use?

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I could probably write a Go program that will run a command and just tell me the answer, assuming that architectures don't change between deployments?

frail pumice
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linux_amd64

stray breach
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Ah

frail pumice
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it wont ever be anything but that

stray breach
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OK thanks, so basically I download the binary and then I can invoke it manually or use Railway's cron settings

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Was I misunderstanding the thing about cron in Railway? From the other thread

frail pumice
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well in this case it would need to be done in the same service that you run your api in

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so you cant use railway cron for web services

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aka this needs to be an in code cron or linux cron

stray breach
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Well my plan was to back up the DB to R2

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That part is pretty easy

frail pumice
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but honestly even though its a lot of boilerplate, a fully in code solution is not a bad idea

stray breach
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So once serivce for syncing DBs and one service for reading IPs

stray breach
frail pumice
stray breach
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R2 egress is free

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The dbs are pretty small

frail pumice
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railway is not

stray breach
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Oh right

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But still I don't think 50mb twice a week is a lot?

frail pumice
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no but theres really no need

stray breach
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What would you do? Given the same problem

frail pumice
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store the database on a volume in the same service as the api

stray breach
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So two services one VM with a volume?

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Or collapse into one service with a volume?

frail pumice
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not VMs, container*

but yes your api would be responsible for doing its own thing and downloading the database

stray breach
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OK I can try that, I've never used volumes intentionally before

frail pumice
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its just a path and then you store the files in the path

stray breach
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But can you debug it?

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Like in Railway is there anyway to LS it?

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How are you supposed to know what the contents are, does the web view help you?

frail pumice
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there is not any native way to do that

stray breach
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OK but it's a volume that you can programmatically LS is your point

frail pumice
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you know the contents because you wrote the code that put the files into the volume

frail pumice
stray breach
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Don't underestimate my naiveness

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🙂

frail pumice
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haha dont overthink it

stray breach
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Alright, thanks!