+++
date = 2023-06-08
title = "Inspecting Nginx Logs with GoAccess and MaxMind GeoIP Data"
description = ""
draft = false
+++

# Overview

[GoAccess](https://goaccess.io/) is an open source real-time web log analyzer
and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal in \*nix systems or through your
browser.

# Installation

To start, you'll need to install GoAccess for your OS. Here's an example for
Debian-based distros:

```sh
sudo apt install goaccess
```

Next, find any number of the MaxMind GeoIP database files on GitHub or another
file hosting website. We're going to use P3TERX's version in this example:

```sh
wget https://github.com/P3TERX/GeoLite.mmdb/raw/download/GeoLite2-City.mmdb
```

Be sure to save this file in an easy to remember location!

# Usage

In order to utilize the full capabilities of GoAccess and MMDB, start with the
command template below and customize as necessary. This will export an HTML view
of the GoAccess dashboard, showing all relevant information related to that
site's access log. You can also omit the `-o output.html` parameter if you
prefer to view the data within the CLI instead of creating an HTML file.

With the addition of the GeoIP Database parameter, section `16 - Geo Location`
will be added with the various countries that are associated with the collected
IP addresses.

```sh
zcat /var/log/nginx/example.access.log.*.gz | goaccess     \
--geoip-database=/home/user/GeoLite2-City.mmdb             \
--date-format=%d/%b/%Y                                     \
--time-format=%H:%M:%S                                     \
--log-format=COMBINED                                      \
-o output.html                                             \
/var/log/nginx/example.access.log -
```

## Example Output

See below for an example of the HTML output:

![GoAccess
HTML](https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20230608-goaccess/goaccess-dashboard.png)

You can also see the GeoIP card created by the integration of the MaxMind
database information.

![GoAccess
GeoIP](https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20230608-goaccess/goaccess-geoip.png)

That's all there is to it! Informational data is provided in an organized
fashion with minimal effort.