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According to https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions-zones/, the region/zone "asia-northeast1-a/b/c/" should suppose to be in Tokyo, Japan. But once I came up with the virtual machine with that zone/region, an IP trace/lookup website such as http://www.ip-tracker.org/locator/ip-lookup.php would say the VM is still in California where Google is. I meant to have the VM set up as a proxy (server) so that the VM appears to be in Japan to be able to browse content restricted to Japan. Am I misunderstanding the region/zone here? Thanks!

Taher
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Clark Kent
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1 Answers1

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Many external Geo IP services solely depend on SWIP database/ WHOIS entry. Almost all Google IP addresses are SWIP’ed to Mountain View, California. Both of these do not reflect anything about the physical location of the machine answering packets to an IP address nor the decisions on how packets are routed to the destination.

Rest assured, although the IPs seem to be US based; the VM instances will be running in the geographical zone you selected. It is a common practice to remap a block of IPs from one location to another, especially given the elasticity of IP addresses for the Google Cloud Platform. You can learn more about the different regions and zones from this article.

Taher
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    Is there a way to make the IP seem to be Japan based? Otherwise, i don't feel like i could access those content restricted to Japan. Of course i could use Softether instead of GCP to access them, but I would prefer GCP down the road. thx – Clark Kent Jan 23 '18 at 03:03
  • Currently, there is no solution offered by Google to get Japan-based IPs. That said, there is already a feature request opened for it. You can comment on the [opened feature request](https://issuetracker.google.com/72263361) to attract more attention to it. – Taher Jan 24 '18 at 03:31
  • Thanks! Just added a comment. Appreciate it! – Clark Kent Jan 25 '18 at 04:28
  • it appears people in China can't connect to GCP's instances today to circumvent the great firewall on June 4 anniversary. – Clark Kent Jun 04 '18 at 03:34
  • @ClarkKent: Let me know if you found any solutions doing it with GCP. I would also like to use the same. – user2627846 Oct 09 '18 at 02:39