GeoServer
Overview
GeoServer is the Java based GIS web server that I am using with PostgreSQL and PostGIS for the Mapping Vietnam project
Home page: http://geoserver.org/
2012 Sep -- 2.2 installed
2011 Oct -- I am working with 2.1.2 now
2009 Feb 06 -- I decided to take a crack at installing GeoServer 1.7.2 today.
"GeoServer is a Java-based software server that allows users to view and edit geospatial data. Using open standards set forth by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), GeoServer allows for great flexibility in map creation and data sharing."
The crucial feature is that it allows edits via WFS-T. Mapserver does not.
WFS-T comments: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/2006/01/09/geoserver-wfs-t
Sample GeoServer site
The Portland TriMet system map is on GeoServer via the OpenGeo stack.
This is from the Portland Trimet site... GeoServer, OpenLayers, TileCache, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, GDAL, Extjs, Freemarker, Solr, Antlr, Balance Ant, Http Client, Tomcat, Apache, and Cent OS are the underlying technologies used on this application. We're indebted to the contributors of these (and many other: eclipse, firefox and firebug to name a few) open source projects for sharing their efforts and expertise.
Geoserver Capabilities
- WCS = Web Coverage Service = queryable feature data (OGC)
- WFS = Web Feature Service = vector data (OGC)
- WMS = Web Map Service = delivers rasters (not tiles) (OGC)
- TMS = Tile map service = delivers raster tiles (OSGEO)
- WMS-C = Web Map Service - Cached = WMS with tile caching (OSGEO draft)
- WMTS = Web Map Tile service (OGC)
I think WCS can return features that are related from several feature classes whereas WFS returns features from one class only??
If you are implementing a tile-based client you should probably use WMTS or maybe TMS. WMS-C was a OSGEO draft.
On the server side for performance and the best cartography you'd probably be better off pre-rendering and caching all the tiles. What's the best way to do that? Tilemill or gdal2tiles ? What's the best way to serve the prerendered tiles? TileCache? Or just use a web server (Apache)?
Status
I have installed GeoServer 2.1.2 on HuPI.org, using the WAR file and Tomcat 7. It's running on the Oracle Java JRE. I had to upgrade my virtual machine account because 512M was not enough to run it. At work I have 2.2 running.
I have gotten data loaded into PostGIS and published it in GeoServer.
Then I need to add the new layer into the map.
The Apache server and raster tiles will remain at Hupi.
Setting up GeoServer
I found instructions in the PostGIS book. Page 324- As mentioned above I currently use the WAR file method.
Tomcat 7
I removed OpenJDK (which is purported to be suboptimal for use with GeoServer) and installed Oracle JDK 7. You only need JRE not JDK for Tomcat now, but I needed JDK for ESRI MDB support in GDAL.
Removing the OpenJDK also removed about 400 pounds of other packages, including Tomcat 6. This is okay really, since Tomcat 7 is the latest release anyway.
Download Tomcat 7 in binary form and unpack it where it will live.
cd /tmp wget http://mirror.uoregon.edu/apache/tomcat/tomcat-7/v7.0.23/bin/apache-tomcat-7.0.23.tar.gz sudo mkdir /usr/local/java cd /usr/local/java sudo tar xzvf /tmp/apache-tomcat-7.0.23.tar.gz ln -s apache-tomcat-7.0.23 tomcat7 cd tomcat7 Note -- fix the users and passwords up in conf/tomcat-users.xml chown -R tomcat.tomcat temp work logs webapps chgrp -R tomcat conf chmod 750 conf chmod g+w conf/* su - tomcat sh bin/startup.sh
Now try to connect to your server on port 8080, eg http://bellman:8080/ Do bin/shutdown.sh and finish configuration. How big is my heap? I can see on Hupi it's not enough for Geoserver!
java -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal -version 2>&1 | grep -i MaxHeapSize
This shows 256M, but in the tomcat startup file it's set to 128M.
I create a /etc/default/tomcat file containing
# Brian cooked up this file from the original written for tomcat6 TOMCAT_GROUP=tomcat TOMCAT_USER=tomcat # 2011-Nov-01 bwilson --Geoserver is hungry for more RAM!!! JAVA_OPTS="-Djava.awt.headless=true -Xmx512m -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC" JAVA_HOME="/usr/local/java/jre1.6.0_29" JVM_TMP=/tmp/tomcat7-temp
I make a startup file in /etc/init.d based on an existing one.
#!/bin/sh # # /etc/init.d/tomcat7 -- startup script for the Tomcat servlet engine # # Brian hacked this version to run Tomcat 7 # # Written by Miquel van Smoorenburg <[email protected]>. # Modified for Debian GNU/Linux by Ian Murdock <[email protected]>. # Modified for Tomcat by Stefan Gybas <[email protected]>. # Modified for Tomcat6 by Thierry Carrez <[email protected]>. # Additional improvements by Jason Brittain <[email protected]>. # ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: tomcat7 # Required-Start: $local_fs $remote_fs $network # Required-Stop: $local_fs $remote_fs $network # Should-Start: $named # Should-Stop: $named # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6 # Short-Description: Start Tomcat. # Description: Start the Tomcat servlet engine. ### END INIT INFO set -e PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin NAME=tomcat DESC="Tomcat servlet engine" DEFAULT=/etc/default/$NAME JVM_TMP=/tmp/tomcat-temp if [ `id -u` -ne 0 ]; then echo "You need root privileges to run this script" exit 1 fi # Make sure tomcat is started with system locale if [ -r /etc/default/locale ]; then . /etc/default/locale export LANG fi . /lib/lsb/init-functions if [ -r /etc/default/rcS ]; then . /etc/default/rcS fi # The following variables can be overwritten in $DEFAULT # Run Tomcat as this user ID and group ID TOMCAT_USER=tomcat TOMCAT_GROUP=tomcat # The first existing directory is used for JAVA_HOME (if JAVA_HOME is not # defined in $DEFAULT or in the environment) #JDK_DIRS="/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun /usr/lib/j2sdk1.5-sun /usr/lib/j2sdk1.5-ibm" # Look for the right JVM to use #for jdir in $JDK_DIRS; do # if [ -r "$jdir/bin/java" -a -z "${JAVA_HOME}" ]; then # JAVA_HOME="$jdir" # fi #done # Directory where the Tomcat binary distribution resides CATALINA_HOME=/usr/local/$NAME # Directory for per-instance configuration files and webapps # This would be in /var/lib/tomcat6 if this were a Debian package CATALINA_BASE=/usr/local/$NAME # Use the Java security manager? (yes/no) TOMCAT_SECURITY=no # Default Java options # Set java.awt.headless=true if JAVA_OPTS is not set so the # Xalan XSL transformer can work without X11 display on JDK 1.4+ # It also looks like the default heap size of 64M is not enough for most cases # so the maximum heap size is set to 128M if [ -z "$JAVA_OPTS" ]; then JAVA_OPTS="-Djava.awt.headless=true -Xmx128M" fi # End of variables that can be overwritten in $DEFAULT # overwrite settings from default file if [ -f "$DEFAULT" ]; then . "$DEFAULT" fi export JAVA_HOME if [ ! -f "$CATALINA_HOME/bin/bootstrap.jar" ]; then log_failure_msg "$NAME is not installed" exit 1 fi POLICY_CACHE="$CATALINA_BASE/work/catalina.policy" if [ -z "$CATALINA_TMPDIR" ]; then CATALINA_TMPDIR="$JVM_TMP" fi # Set the JSP compiler if set in the tomcat6.default file if [ -n "$JSP_COMPILER" ]; then JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dbuild.compiler=\"$JSP_COMPILER\"" fi SECURITY="" if [ "$TOMCAT_SECURITY" = "yes" ]; then SECURITY="-security" fi # Define other required variables CATALINA_PID="/var/run/$NAME.pid" CATALINA_SH="$CATALINA_HOME/bin/catalina.sh" # Look for Java Secure Sockets Extension (JSSE) JARs if [ -z "${JSSE_HOME}" -a -r "${JAVA_HOME}/jre/lib/jsse.jar" ]; then JSSE_HOME="${JAVA_HOME}/jre/" fi catalina_sh() { # Escape any double quotes in the value of JAVA_OPTS JAVA_OPTS="$(echo $JAVA_OPTS | sed 's/\"/\\\"/g')" AUTHBIND_COMMAND="" if [ "$AUTHBIND" = "yes" -a "$1" = "start" ]; then JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true" AUTHBIND_COMMAND="/usr/bin/authbind --deep /bin/bash -c " fi # Define the command to run Tomcat's catalina.sh as a daemon # set -a tells sh to export assigned variables to spawned shells. TOMCAT_SH="set -a; JAVA_HOME=\"$JAVA_HOME\"; source \"$DEFAULT\"; \ CATALINA_HOME=\"$CATALINA_HOME\"; \ CATALINA_BASE=\"$CATALINA_BASE\"; \ JAVA_OPTS=\"$JAVA_OPTS\"; \ CATALINA_PID=\"$CATALINA_PID\"; \ CATALINA_TMPDIR=\"$CATALINA_TMPDIR\"; \ LANG=\"$LANG\"; JSSE_HOME=\"$JSSE_HOME\"; \ cd \"$CATALINA_BASE\"; \ \"$CATALINA_SH\" $@" if [ "$AUTHBIND" = "yes" -a "$1" = "start" ]; then TOMCAT_SH="'$TOMCAT_SH'" fi # Run the catalina.sh script as a daemon set +e touch "$CATALINA_PID" "$CATALINA_BASE"/logs/catalina.out chown $TOMCAT_USER "$CATALINA_PID" "$CATALINA_BASE"/logs/catalina.out start-stop-daemon --start -b -u "$TOMCAT_USER" -g "$TOMCAT_GROUP" \ -c "$TOMCAT_USER" -d "$CATALINA_TMPDIR" -p "$CATALINA_PID" \ -x /bin/bash -- -c "$AUTHBIND_COMMAND $TOMCAT_SH" status="$?" set +a -e return $status } case "$1" in start) if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" ]; then log_failure_msg "no JDK found - please set JAVA_HOME" exit 1 fi if [ ! -d "$CATALINA_BASE/conf" ]; then log_failure_msg "invalid CATALINA_BASE: $CATALINA_BASE" exit 1 fi log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME" if start-stop-daemon --test --start --pidfile "$CATALINA_PID" \ --user $TOMCAT_USER --exec "$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" \ >/dev/null; then # Regenerate POLICY_CACHE file umask 022 echo "// AUTO-GENERATED FILE from $CATALINA_BASE/conf/policy.d/" > "$POLICY_CACHE" echo "" >> "$POLICY_CACHE" cat $CATALINA_BASE/conf/policy.d/*.policy \ >> "$POLICY_CACHE" # Remove / recreate JVM_TMP directory rm -rf "$JVM_TMP" mkdir -p "$JVM_TMP" || { log_failure_msg "could not create JVM temporary directory" exit 1 } chown $TOMCAT_USER "$JVM_TMP" catalina_sh start $SECURITY sleep 5 if start-stop-daemon --test --start --pidfile "$CATALINA_PID" \ --user $TOMCAT_USER --exec "$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" \ >/dev/null; then if [ -f "$CATALINA_PID" ]; then rm -f "$CATALINA_PID" fi log_end_msg 1 else log_end_msg 0 fi else log_progress_msg "(already running)" log_end_msg 0 fi ;; stop) log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME" set +e if [ -f "$CATALINA_PID" ]; then start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile "$CATALINA_PID" \ --user "$TOMCAT_USER" \ --retry=TERM/20/KILL/5 >/dev/null if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then log_progress_msg "$DESC is not running but pid file exists, cleaning up" elif [ $? -eq 3 ]; then PID="`cat $CATALINA_PID`" log_failure_msg "Failed to stop $NAME (pid $PID)" exit 1 fi rm -f "$CATALINA_PID" rm -rf "$JVM_TMP" else log_progress_msg "(not running)" fi log_end_msg 0 set -e ;; status) set +e start-stop-daemon --test --start --pidfile "$CATALINA_PID" \ --user $TOMCAT_USER --exec "$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" \ >/dev/null 2>&1 if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then if [ -f "$CATALINA_PID" ]; then log_success_msg "$DESC is not running, but pid file exists." exit 1 else log_success_msg "$DESC is not running." exit 3 fi else log_success_msg "$DESC is running with pid `cat $CATALINA_PID`" fi set -e ;; restart|force-reload) if [ -f "$CATALINA_PID" ]; then $0 stop sleep 1 fi $0 start ;; try-restart) if start-stop-daemon --test --start --pidfile "$CATALINA_PID" \ --user $TOMCAT_USER --exec "$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" \ >/dev/null; then $0 start fi ;; *) log_success_msg "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|try-restart|force-reload|status}" exit 1 ;; esac exit 0
Once you have Tomcat running you can move on to getting Geoserver set up.
Geoserver 2.2
Setting up Geoserver is very easy, download the files and put them in the webapps directory. Use the Tomcat manager page to start it.
cd /usr/local/java/tomcat/webapps wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/geoserver/geoserver-2.2-war.zip unzip geoserver-2.2-war.zip
Once it is there, Tomcat will notice it and start it up. Once started you can access it here
http://bellman:8080/geoserver/
Change admin password now.
You have to look up the one that was created for you when geoserver.war ran the first time. It is in geoserver/data/security/masterpw.info Login as root in the browser and change it now.
This is new in 2.2, in 2.1 there was a default password and you had to edit a file to change it.
Next I have to set up my own workspace to serve my PostGIS data.
Need to fix
/opt/apache/tomcat/webapps/geoserver/data/gwc-layers
INFO: The APR based Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in production environments was not found on the java.library.path: /usr/java/packages/lib/amd64:/usr/lib64:/lib64:/lib:/usr/lib
Connecting GeoServer to PostGIS
Some notes on using WFS-T http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/jreyes/2007/08/03/geotools-wfs-t-update-request/
GeoServer has
- workspaces aka namespaces
- stores aka datastores
- layers
These are about organizing the data accessible to GeoServer.
You store data in stores and a store has to be in a workspace. A PostGIS store connects to a database, and the tables therein become accessible as layers (once you publish them)
So you can create a workspace for Oregon and then put all your state-level data into stores that are in the Oregon workspace.
To create a connection to data in your PostGIS server you have to know what's in there. You can poke around with psql if you are text kind of guy or you can use pgAdmin III, like so: