bitip/ReleaseNotes.json

{
  "releases": [
    {
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "date": "2025-10-01T12:00:00Z",
      "title": "Initial Release - Bitip GeoIP Service",
      "summary": "First production-ready release of Bitip, a modern GeoIP lookup service with REST API and interactive web interface.",
      "sections": [
        {
          "title": "Overview",
          "content": "Bitip is a high-performance GeoIP lookup service designed to provide accurate geolocation data for IP addresses. Built with modern web technologies, it offers both a RESTful API for programmatic access and an intuitive web interface for interactive lookups."
        },
        {
          "title": "Core Features",
          "items": [
            "**Single IP Lookup** - Get geolocation data for individual IP addresses with detailed information including country, city, coordinates, timezone, and postal code",
            "**Batch IP Lookup** - Process up to 100 IP addresses in a single request for efficient bulk operations",
            "**Dual API Access** - Separate authentication for frontend and external API consumers with different rate limiting profiles",
            "**Origin Validation** - Security layer that validates request origins for frontend API keys to prevent unauthorized access",
            "**Rate Limiting** - Configurable request limits per API key type (100 req/min for frontend, 1000 req/min for external)",
            "**Real-time Lookup** - Instant geolocation results powered by MaxMind GeoLite2 City database",
            "**Interactive Web UI** - Modern, responsive interface for manual IP lookups with visual feedback",
            "**RESTful API** - Clean, well-documented API endpoints for easy integration"
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "Technology Stack",
          "subsections": [
            {
              "subtitle": "Backend",
              "items": [
                "**Node.js 18+** with ES Modules (ESM) for modern JavaScript features",
                "**Express 5.x** - Fast, minimalist web framework with enhanced routing",
                "**TypeScript 5.x** - Type-safe development with latest language features",
                "**MaxMind GeoIP2 Node.js API** - Official MaxMind library for GeoLite2 database integration",
                "**express-rate-limit 8.x** - Advanced rate limiting with IP tracking",
                "**Helmet** - Security middleware for Express applications",
                "**CORS** - Cross-Origin Resource Sharing support",
                "**Joi** - Schema validation for API requests",
                "**Seq Logging** (optional) - Structured logging for production monitoring",
                "**node-cache** - In-memory caching layer"
              ]
            },
            {
              "subtitle": "Frontend",
              "items": [
                "**React 19.x** - Modern UI library with latest features",
                "**TypeScript** - Type-safe frontend development",
                "**Vite 7.x** - Next-generation frontend tooling with lightning-fast HMR",
                "**Axios** - Promise-based HTTP client",
                "**React Leaflet** - Interactive maps for geolocation visualization",
                "**ESLint & Prettier** - Code quality and formatting"
              ]
            },
            {
              "subtitle": "Infrastructure",
              "items": [
                "**Docker** - Containerized deployment with multi-stage builds",
                "**Node.js Alpine** - Lightweight production images",
                "**Health Checks** - Container health monitoring",
                "**Graceful Shutdown** - Clean process termination",
                "**Non-root User** - Security-hardened container execution"
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "Security Features",
          "items": [
            "**API Key Authentication** - Two-tier authentication system (frontend + external)",
            "**Origin Validation** - Validates Origin/Referer headers for frontend API key requests",
            "**Rate Limiting** - Per-API-key request throttling with configurable windows",
            "**CORS Protection** - Configurable cross-origin resource sharing",
            "**Helmet Security Headers** - Standard HTTP security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, etc.)",
            "**Input Validation** - Schema-based request validation with Joi",
            "**Error Sanitization** - Production mode hides sensitive error details"
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "API Endpoints",
          "items": [
            "`GET /api/health` - Health check endpoint for monitoring",
            "`GET /api/ip` - Returns the client's public IP address",
            "`GET /api/lookup?ip={ip}` - Single IP geolocation lookup (simplified response)",
            "`GET /api/lookup/detailed?ip={ip}` - Detailed IP geolocation lookup (full MaxMind data)",
            "`POST /api/lookup/batch` - Batch IP lookup (up to 100 IPs per request)"
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "Configuration",
          "items": [
            "**Environment-based Configuration** - All settings via `.env` file",
            "**Flexible Port Configuration** - Configurable API port (default: 5172)",
            "**Base Path Support** - Deploy under custom URL paths (e.g., `/geoip-ui`)",
            "**Database Path Configuration** - Custom MaxMind database locations",
            "**Rate Limit Tuning** - Separate limits for frontend and external consumers",
            "**Batch Size Limits** - Configurable maximum batch request size",
            "**Debounce Configuration** - Adjustable input debounce delays"
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "Development Journey",
          "content": "Bitip was developed as a modern alternative to traditional GeoIP services, focusing on developer experience and deployment simplicity. The project was built from the ground up with TypeScript for type safety and maintainability. Special attention was given to security best practices, including origin validation and multi-tier API authentication. The ESM migration ensures compatibility with modern JavaScript ecosystems and future-proofs the codebase. All major dependencies were updated to their latest stable versions, with breaking changes carefully addressed and documented."
        },
        {
          "title": "Architecture Highlights",
          "items": [
            "**Multi-stage Docker Build** - Separate build stages for frontend, backend, and production",
            "**Graceful Shutdown** - Proper signal handling (SIGTERM, SIGINT, SIGUSR2) for zero-downtime deployments",
            "**Structured Logging** - JSON-formatted logs with optional Seq integration",
            "**Error Handling** - Global error handlers with environment-aware verbosity",
            "**Middleware Pipeline** - Layered request processing (logging, auth, rate limiting, CORS)",
            "**Type Safety** - End-to-end TypeScript for compile-time error detection"
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "Known Limitations",
          "items": [
            "Requires external MaxMind GeoLite2 City database (not included)",
            "Frontend API key is visible in browser (mitigated by origin validation + aggressive rate limiting)",
            "In-memory rate limiting (not suitable for multi-instance deployments without Redis)",
            "No built-in database auto-update mechanism (requires external GeoIP update service)"
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "Documentation",
          "items": [
            "**README.md** - Quick start guide and overview",
            "**CONFIGURATION.md** - Detailed configuration reference for all environment variables",
            "**BREAKING-CHANGES-FIXED.md** - Documentation of major version upgrades and fixes",
            "**PACKAGE-UPDATES.md** - Record of all dependency updates to latest versions",
            "Inline code documentation and TypeScript interfaces"
          ]
        },
        {
          "title": "License",
          "content": "Bitip is proprietary software. Unauthorized use, distribution, or modification is strictly prohibited. Contact the author for licensing inquiries."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}