Banning players by country?

[Sadu]

I run a Server in New Zealand, based at my local ISP. He is charging me a very reasonable rate, on the condition that it is only national, and not international bandwidth being used (international bandwidth is very expensive in NZ).

I am getting a lot of Australians joining the server, despite the server name having "NZ ONLY!" in it - not sure if they teach reading in school over in Australia :)

Is there a list of IP ranges specific to each country? I would like to either "allow all NZ IPs" or "Ban all Aussie IPs".

Anyone got any ideas on this, or a workaround solution?

I don't think so, But I would think your ISP could do the blocking on his side. If they are charging you this way.


I found this and it mentions NZ

http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/geoblocking.htm

[Sadu]

Thanks for your comments rude dog :)
It's a tricky issue this one, I guess in most places national and international data is treated the same.

The ISP can tell how much national and international data is used on each server, but that is about all the info we have to work with. It's a Linux server, so there might be some nifty admin tool to help block access to port 12203 - hopefully.

It's very frustrating how people don't read - It basically means I cant leave the server on without being there - I have to monitor the server and manually run TRACERT on any players I don't recognise, then warn and kick.

Once again, thanks for your help.

[Shockwave]

I looked around the web and found this link that might interest you:

http://www.maxmind.com/

Evidently they offer free API's and free access to a database that is updated yearly. Maybe this is something you can use.

Also, it might be a good idea to talk to your ISP. In order for them to bill you extra for international traffic, they must be able to identify it. Perhaps they can block it for you or allow you to access the method by which they themsleves make that determination.