How to Test IP Geolocation APIs with cURL

Jan 16, 2026 · 5 min read

cURL is the fastest way to test any API from your terminal. Here's how to use it effectively with IP geolocation endpoints.

Basic Request

curl https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo

Returns raw JSON with your IP, city, country, coordinates, timezone, and more.

Pretty Print with jq

curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo | jq .

The -s flag silences the progress bar, and jq . formats the JSON output with colors and indentation.

Extract Specific Fields

# Get just the city
curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo | jq -r '.city'

# Get city and country
curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo | jq -r '"(.city), (.country)"'

# Get coordinates
curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo | jq '{lat: .latitude, lng: .longitude}'

Measure Response Time

# Total time
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "Total: %{time_total}s\n" https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo

# Detailed timing breakdown
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "DNS: %{time_namelookup}s\nConnect: %{time_connect}s\nTLS: %{time_appconnect}s\nFirst byte: %{time_starttransfer}s\nTotal: %{time_total}s\n" https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo

Check Response Headers

curl -I https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo

This shows the HTTP headers including CORS headers, content type, and cache directives.

Test CORS Preflight

curl -X OPTIONS https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo \
  -H "Origin: https://example.com" \
  -H "Access-Control-Request-Method: GET" \
  -v 2>&1 | grep -i "access-control"

Save Response to File

# Save JSON response
curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo -o location.json

# Append to log with timestamp
echo "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ) $(curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo)" >> geo_log.txt

Loop for Monitoring

# Check every 30 seconds
while true; do
  echo "$(date): $(curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo | jq -r '.city')"
  sleep 30
done

Compare Multiple APIs

# Time multiple geolocation APIs
for url in \
  "https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo" \
  "https://ipapi.co/json/" \
  "http://ip-api.com/json/"; do
  time=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{time_total}" "$url")
  echo "$url → ${time}s"
done

Use in Shell Scripts

#!/bin/bash
# Get visitor country and act on it
COUNTRY=$(curl -s https://geo.kamero.ai/api/geo | jq -r '.country')

case $COUNTRY in
  US) echo "Connecting to US server..." ;;
  EU|DE|FR|GB) echo "Connecting to EU server..." ;;
  *) echo "Connecting to default server..." ;;
esac