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I have created an instance based in London region

enter image description here

Due to strict guidelines from client we have to make sure there should be no trace where it shows that the app is hosted outside EU.

Not even here: enter image description here

We are using google services from a long if we dont get a solution then we will have no other choice left except to move to AWS.

Because in AWS we have a RDS instance which is based in London region and when we are doing the ip address lookup its showing the expected result. enter image description here

> Is there any way we can make it to point to only Europe region and not any other region including US.

We already have our application deployed into GAE instance but since it does not offer any changes into the ip address. I tried to look for a solution into the GCE but this also does not solve our issue.

Thank you.

Updating the OP

Just for the records. We posted an issue on the support portal and even bought gold support package to get it resolved. But it turned out that it cant be achieved. They cant help out in getting the trace-route to show the actual region for static ip where the respective instance is located. And we ended up > migrating to Azure platform from GCP.

I will keep it open, may be GCP will come up with a solution in future for this issue.

Jofre
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A_01
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    You do understand that what you see on sites like that has fundamentally nothing to do with the actual location of anything... right? IP-based geolocation is strictly art, not science, and often incorrectly displays the corporate location of the entity controlling the IP addresses. The fact that the AWS block happens to be correct is nice but doesn't contradict this assertion. – Michael - sqlbot Aug 11 '18 at 19:04
  • @Michael-sqlbot : I cant say this silly statement to our clients that the software we built is showing the ip address of US instead of europe region is an art. How do you think I can convince them? Because we have strict guideline that there should be no trace that the data is going out of europe region. What do you think? how I can assure them its not going out of Europe region when every ip tracking site available shows its based in US. I didnot find any tool or proof that proves that the instance I created is actually in europe not in US. – A_01 Aug 13 '18 at 09:09
  • I hear what you are saying. These sites don't really prove anything, but sometimes perception supercedes reality. May I have the IP address range under consideration, please? If you don't know the CIDR, just a portion would be sufficient, e.g. `203.0.113.*`. – Michael - sqlbot Aug 13 '18 at 09:36
  • Sorry I could not provide because I already destroyed that instance. we actually already started the migration from Google to AWS. I guess we dont have any other option left. – A_01 Aug 13 '18 at 09:47
  • Hi @Michael-sqlbot Is there any solution you can propose? – A_01 Aug 13 '18 at 13:10

2 Answers2

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All the IP addresses Google provides to GCP user are registered with ARIN under the Google HQ in Mountain View, California (in other words SWIP to be Mountain View, CA). So, all geolocations lookup of the IP addresses will resolve to the United States even though the actual server is located somewhere else. In addition to that, in GCP, it's not uncommon to remap a block of IPs from one location to another, especially given the elasticity of IP addresses for the GCP and they way they are recycled or reused.

However, depending on which tool or website you are are using to get geolocation information the information may vary just because of the fact that they might be using a different database, which may not be updated or doesn’t have the right information regarding the geolocation of the IP.

You could you this website/ tool from ARIN (SEARCH WhoisRWS) to get a more accurate answer as, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Canada, the United States, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands. Which is more will provide more reliable information.

Possible workarounds, you could set up a reverse proxy on a machine that has a Geo local IP address for EU and forwards requests from there to your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) VM instance. For example, spin up nginx in CloudSigma and point the DNS at that.

Nur
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  • Ok so how do you suggest I can assure our client that our application hosted into google app engine are GDPR complaint? – A_01 Aug 16 '18 at 09:27
  • If you decide to use a reverse proxy, then you could use traceroute or MTR to provide your customer that the traffic is not going out of EU, remaining within the EU. Additionally, this GCP link on "Google Cloud & the General Data Protection Regulation"[1] provide information on GCP compliance to GDPR. [1] https://cloud.google.com/security/gdpr/ – Nur Aug 17 '18 at 17:48
  • To have a reverse proxy I spun up a new compute engine and checked its ip address. Unfortunately its again showing the same result that the ip is based in US not EU. – A_01 Aug 18 '18 at 09:17
  • My advice was to have a reverse proxy with a third party ( local provided), who would be able to provide you with a Geo local IP address for EU and forwards requests from there to your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) VM instance. For this, you could use service from CloudSigma, which is mentioned in my original message. Link https://www.cloudsigma.com/ – Nur Aug 28 '18 at 01:16
  • Thanks for your advice @Nur. But I think its a workaround not a solution. Anyways we already started migration from GCP to Azure because even the google gold support did not responded well on this issue. – A_01 Aug 29 '18 at 07:08
  • If you like, you could submit a feature request using [this link](https://cloud.google.com/support/docs/issue-trackers#feature_requests) to the Google Cloud Platform, when doing so provide detailed information along with your use case. You could also use [this link](https://googlecloudplatform.uservoice.com/forums/299943--google-cloud-platform) to Google Cloud Platform idea forum to submit and vote on new ideas to the Google Cloud Platform team. – Nur Aug 29 '18 at 17:34
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I am not sure is this not possible solution? if in that case how other cloud vendor able to do so.

I have taken two box in linode one in Singapore and other one from UK they both able to show the region perfectly well.

Note :- I have updated the latest database from MaxMind of Country IP

geoiplookup 1xx.xx6.2x.xx0

GeoIP Country Edition: GB, United Kingdom

Another Machine.

geoiplookup 1xx.xx2.x5.1xx

GeoIP Country Edition: SG, Singapore

But all the machine I took in GCP are pointing to US which is not good. In some point if this is going to be a big issue in our PCI and Customer questionable we need to look for another cloud vendor :(

Keerthiraja
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    @Keethiraja : For GCP there is no possible solution available right now. Their system is bound to show the ip traceroute end point is in US only. And FYI We already moved to Azure because of this constraint. – A_01 May 14 '19 at 08:57