Large allow/deny lists?

How do large allow/deny lists affect performance?

[elewis33]

What if I wanted to block all out-of-country IP addresses? I've seen several places where you can find these long lists of IP addresses by country. Obviously, putting something like this in a configuration file would make it quite large. My question is how would this kind of thing affect performance of the Apache server? Is this even practical? Is there another alternative or suggestions from anyone?

[wilderness]

Welcome to Webamster World.

You don't say which country your referring to in "out-of-country"?

I've had this implemeted for more than five-years for non-North American ranges, however. . .

It's neither a full-proof initation (requires constant updating) and requires many additional tasks as well:
1) out-of-country referrals.
2) translators
3) web acceleartors
4) in-country requests (hosted & colo's) from out-of-country domains.
5) revisions in re-assigned IP ranges.
6) NO-CACHE (difficult task for many IP's and softwares)
7) No spidering by archive.org or other similar archives.
8) there may even be more restrictions which escape me at the momemt.

As far as server load?
It depends entirely upon the content of your website (s)?
My pages are rather simple with primarily text and limited quanities of images, WITHOUT fancy add-ons (Java, scripting, PHP-MYSQL, Flash or other similiar functions).

You also need to keep in mind that you'll need to make allowances in granting access to special requests for out-of-country requests that are beneficial.

My htaccess is rather large and continues to grow, and, yet my pages load fast.

You need to keep your visitor logs free of excess lines (such as CP add-on forums) that will allow you to view your logs easily and quickly for future corrections.

It's hardly a one-time process and demands constant attention.
Course you may find a vendor willing to implemt the entire process for an exotic monthly fee ;)

Don