How to change ‘IP to Country Lite database’ to MaxMind as a source for blocking countries in Plesk Firewall

Question

How to change 'IP to Country Lite database' to MaxMind as a source for blocking countries in Plesk Firewall

Answer

Follow these steps to switch to MaxMind or change its license key.

1. Connect to the server over SSH

2. Edit /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini

   # vi /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini

3. Add the following lines depending on the version to use and save the file:

   • GeoLite2 DB (free)

     [ext-firewall]
     geoipDataSource = maxmind-lite

   • GeoIP2 DB (paid)

     [ext-firewall]
     geoipDataSource = maxmind

4. Run this command on the terminal once

   Note: Replace "<license_key>" with the MaxMind license key.

   # LICENSE_KEY="<license_key>" plesk sbin modules/firewall/ipsets --configure --data-source maxmind-lite --force

   This may result in warnings like the follwing. They can be ignored as long as their return code is 0:

   ipset v7.11: Set cannot be destroyed: it is in use by a kernel component

5. Reapply the configuration using Plesk Firewall

To switch back to DB-IP (db-ip-lite data source), remove the geoipDataSource line from panel.ini and reapply the Plesk Firewall configuration.