GeoIP and GeoSite Databases: What They Do and How to Update

Rules like GEOIP,CN,DIRECT and GEOSITE,category-ads-all,REJECT only work because of three local data files. When those files age, routing gets weird — sites that should go direct sneak through the proxy and vice versa.

Which file does what

File	Contents	Used by
geoip.dat / country.mmdb	IP ranges mapped to countries	GEOIP rules
geosite.dat	Domain lists grouped by purpose (cn, gfw, category-ads-all…)	GEOSITE rules

Verge Rev defaults to the community-enhanced data from MetaCubeX (meta-rules-dat), which categorizes far more finely than the originals.

When to update

• Visible misclassification: a domestic site routed abroad, or the reverse;
• The core reports "not found" for a newer GEOSITE category you're referencing;
• Routine hygiene: once every month or two is plenty. Daily updates buy nothing.

How to update

Settings → Update GeoData. The app fetches fresh files from the data source and reloads the core automatically. The download follows your current proxy logic — if GitHub is unreachable, get a working node first.

Verify and troubleshoot

• Afterwards, search a known domain on the Rules page and confirm it hits the expected rule;
• Update failures show in the Logs page — usually a timeout; retry through a different node;
• If many rules act broken right after updating, restart the core so the new data actually loads.