[mapserver-users] Production mapserver
What do we need to do to get Mapserver running in a production configuration? There are packages out there to help new users get mapserver up and running in a development/playing-around-in mode, ms4w, etc. But these are designed for ease of installation, not performance on a production server. I have a set of shapefiles, and some mapfiles I've built to display them. I have them running on a dev machine, just fine. So what do I need to do to go into production. I have a dedicated Ubuntu 10.04 box, that will be doing nothing but serving maps through WMS requests, using Mapserver. It currently has both Apache and MapServer installed, using the current apt-get packages. Should I be using Apache? Or should I use Lighttpd? Standard CGI? FastCGI? Some other alternative? (WSGI?) Does Mapserver install on Ubuntu by default to use FastCGI? How can I tell whether MapServer is running under FastCGI? How do I configure it to do so, if it's not already? ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
RE: [mapserver-users] Production mapserver
Useful to know, but I don't want to let your comment distract from my original question. I listed MS4W only as an example of an easy-to-install MapServer configuration. What I'm actually trying to get working is MapServer on Linux. -Original Message- From: mapserver-users-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:mapserver-users-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jeff McKenna Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 11:34 AM To: mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] Production mapserver On 11-03-21 1:27 PM, Jeff Dege wrote: There are packages out there to help new users get mapserver up and running in a development/playing-around-in mode, ms4w, etc. But these are designed for ease of installation, not performance on a production server. Quick comment: MS4W is in fact ready to use in a production environment, and it is definitely used for production purposes by thousands of organizations: take the time to review the steps to enable FastCGI, for example (http://www.maptools.org/ms4w/index.phtml?page=README_INSTALL.html#f-fastcgi). Long-time MS4W users might remember that the MS4W opening page used to state that it was not for production purposes; but that is no longer the case. Thanks. -jeff -- Jeff McKenna MapServer Consulting and Training Services http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/ ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
RE: [mapserver-users] Production mapserver
So, from what I'm hearing Apache vs. Lighttpd isn't going to make a significant difference. Cgi vs. FastCGI very definitely will. Great. So how do I get FastCGI working? There are docs at: http://mapserver.org/optimization/fastcgi.html They are only getting me part of the way there. 1. I'm seeing two packages, that are available for Apache, mod_fastcgi and mod_fcgi. Are these both needed? Only one needed? Are they replacements, alternatives, or entirely unrelated to each other? 2. In the Configuration section of the above doc, it says to modify http.conf to load the module, and to add a handler. The Ubuntu packages placed fastcgi.conf and fastcgi.load in /etc/apache2/mods-available. I expect that I simply need to create a link to these in /etcs/apache2/mods-enabled, the way the others are. 3. The Configuration section also says to add a FastCgiConfig command. Where should this be? I see nothing in that configuration that indicates that it's the mapserv executable I want to run via fastcgi. ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
[mapserver-users] Problems getting started with POSTGIS
I've been using MapServer with shapefiles for some time. I'm trying to convert a site to PostGIS, and I'm having problems. I've successfully installed PostGIS on my Ubunto 10.04 box, and copied a number of shapefiles into it, using shp2pgsql. I can view the new tables using qGIS, so I'm sure the data is right. So now I've copies a mapfile that was working against the original shapefiles, and I'm trying to convert it to use PostGIS. I'm working on just one layer, and I'm trying to test that layer with shp2img. I've added to the LAYER definition: LAYER NAME countyboundaries CONNECTIONTYPE postgis CONNECTION host=localhost dbname=test_db user=gis password=x DATA the_geom from gis_schema.county [...] END As I said, I know the data is in the database, because I can load it as a PostGIS layer from qGIS. Column and table names are right, because when I run select the_geom from gis_schema.county in the query tool I get the data. But when I run shp2img from the commandline, I get an error: $ shp2img -m test.map -o test.gif -i GIF -l countyboundaries msDrawMap(): Image handling error. Failed to draw layer named 'countyboundaries'. msPostGISParseData(): Query error. Error parsing PostGIS DATA variable. Must contain 'geometry from table' or 'geometry from (subselect) as foo'. County shp2img is MapServer version 5.6.6, and the output from -v does contain INPUT=POSTGIS. Any ideas? I'm trying to keep things simple, and it's frustrating when simple doesn't work. ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
RE: [mapserver-users] Problems getting started with POSTGIS
I'm not seeing the query - I don't think I'm getting that far. msPostGISWhichShapes called. msPostGISParseData called. msPostGISParseData(): Query error. Error parsing PostGIS DATA variable. Must contain 'geometry from table' or geometry from (subselect) as Foo'. County But playing around, I saw that I was getting the same error regardless of what I put in the DATA variable. Which made no sense. I tried stuff that should not have worked at all, and saw no difference. So I looked beyond my problematic DATA variable - and found another DATA variable, later in the LAYER definition. If you remember, I started this by copying a mapfile that had been working with shapefiles. I'd changed the CONNECTIONTYPE, added a CONNECTION, and a new DATA - but I hadn't deleted the old DATA. Oops. -Original Message- From: mapserver-users-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:mapserver-users-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Woodbridge Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 4:44 PM To: mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] Problems getting started with POSTGIS On 3/18/2011 3:41 PM, Andy Colson wrote: On 3/18/2011 11:52 AM, Jeff Dege wrote: I've been using MapServer with shapefiles for some time. I'm trying to convert a site to PostGIS, and I'm having problems. I've successfully installed PostGIS on my Ubunto 10.04 box, and copied a number of shapefiles into it, using shp2pgsql. I can view the new tables using qGIS, so I'm sure the data is right. So now I've copies a mapfile that was working against the original shapefiles, and I'm trying to convert it to use PostGIS. I'm working on just one layer, and I'm trying to test that layer with shp2img. I've added to the LAYER definition: LAYER NAME countyboundaries CONNECTIONTYPE postgis CONNECTION host=localhost dbname=test_db user=gis password=x DATA the_geom from gis_schema.county [...] END As I said, I know the data is in the database, because I can load it as a PostGIS layer from qGIS. Column and table names are right, because when I run select the_geom from gis_schema.county in the query tool I get the data. But when I run shp2img from the commandline, I get an error: $ shp2img -m test.map -o test.gif -i GIF -l countyboundaries msDrawMap(): Image handling error. Failed to draw layer named 'countyboundaries'. msPostGISParseData(): Query error. Error parsing PostGIS DATA variable. Must contain 'geometry from table' or 'geometry from (subselect) as foo'. County shp2img is MapServer version 5.6.6, and the output from -v does contain INPUT=POSTGIS. Any ideas? I'm trying to keep things simple, and it's frustrating when simple doesn't work. I cant see anything really wrong. I'm doing mostly the same thing. however: CONNECTION dbname=test_db user=gis password=x because mapserver and PG run on the same box, I left off the host=localhost... not sure if its important. Yes, it might be, it depends on how postgresql is configured. You can test it with: psql -U gis test_db vs: psql -U gis -h localhost test_db DATA the_geom from gis_schema.county using unique gid using srid=-1 I also have the unique and srid things, again not sure if there'd be a difference. This also might be a problem. In general you should not use srid=-1 in the database of in the mapfile. When you load your data you should specify the correct srid and reference in the mapfile. in your mapfile add: MAP CONFIG MS_ERRORFILE stderr DEBUG 10 then run your shp2img again and you might get more debug info. You can also add the DEBUG 10 to you LAYER and I think it will spit out the SQL it is trying to execute so you can try it in psql and maybe get helpful messages there. -Steve W And as a last hint, you can try bumping up the debug: MAP CONFIG MS_ERRORFILE /tmp/mapserver.log ... LAYER DEBUG 4 ... END -Andy ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
RE: [mapserver-users] Is there a problem with layers when serving WMS?
I loaded the map into an openlayers mapping website, zoomed until I saw the spurious labels. I then saved one of the 200x200 pixel tiles. I examined the saved tile, to confirm that the extra labels were present. Then I used the openlayers lat/lon tool to identify the corners of the saved tile. I ran shp2img to create an image with a matching size and extent, using version MapServer Version 4.8.4 on Windows, and then again using MapServer version 5.6.1 on Ubuntu. In both cases, the road geometry matched that of the tile I had saved. The labels, though, were very different. Using shp2img 4.8.4, the labels were closely aligned with the roads. Using shp2img 5.6.1, one of the labels was placed well away from the road feature that was associated with it, and one label appeared for a featured that didn't appear in the image at all. The label specification I'm using: LABEL COLOR 175 140 29 OUTLINECOLOR 239 233 242 TYPE TRUETYPE FONT vera-bold SIZE 6 ANTIALIAS TRUE ANGLE AUTO POSITION AUTO PARTIALS FALSE MINDISTANCE 300 BUFFER 4 END -Original Message- From: mapserver-users-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:mapserver-users-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jeff McKenna Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 6:08 AM To: mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] Is there a problem with layers when serving WMS? Jeff, If I were you I would be degugging my mapfile with the shp2img commandline utility. You can read the usual debugging steps at: http://www.mapserver.org/optimization/debugging.html#step-5-test-your-mapfile Also, if you are having problems with scales, you might want to create a small mapfile with only that one problem scale (in other words remove all scale parameters from mapfile) and then test with shp2img to make sure your labels and features are drawn correctly. Then once you have shp2img working good (you can also pass different extents to the shp2img utility so that you can test your mapfile at different extents/scales) you should then start testing your WMS service. For testing a WMS service, the best way is to manually generate a GetCapabilities URL in a browser, verify its response is valid, then manually generate a GetMap URL in a browser for one layer. (this avoids any issues with WMS clients like QGIS). Once your manual URLs are working, then you can test in a WMS client, such as QGIS. (those debugging steps may be slow, but I do that for every WMS instance I set up) Have a great weekend. -jeff -- Jeff McKenna MapServer Consulting and Training Services http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/ Jeff Dege wrote: I'm putting together a map via Mapserver and WMS (MapServer version 5.6.1 on Ubuntu 10.04), serving a set of shapefiles. The basic approach is to have a pair of layers for each class of highways - interstate, US highways, state highways, local roads, etc. One layer in each pair draws the geometry, the other draws the labels. In this way, the user can turn the labels on and off, as needed. I'm having a problem with highway labels showing up nowhere near where the highways are. At my outermost zoom, all I'm displaying is the major highway geometry and the interstate names. That works OK. When I zoom in a bit, to where I start displaying the US highway names, I see names all over the place, drawn where there are no geometries. I zoom in a bit more, and they go away. (I'm viewing this with Quantum GIS, loading the maps as WMS layers). To help track down what is going on, I took one of the names, did an ogrinfo -where to identify that there was, in fact, a featured with that name in the US highways shapefile. I then extracted just those features into a new shapefile, using ogr2ogr, and then loaded that as a vector layer in Quantum GIS. The aim was to find out where the feature that matched that name actually was. It was nowhere near the label. I set the new vector layer to draw in red, and it was easy to see. With a label from the WMS properly drawn alongside. But 75+ miles away, 600+ pixels across the map, was another label for that feature, nowhere near the feature it was supposed to be describing. I've never seen anything quite like this. But then, I'm just figuring out how to use mapserver to serve WMS. Are there any known gotchas, when drawing label layers in WMS? ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
[mapserver-users] Is there a problem with layers when serving WMS?
I'm putting together a map via Mapserver and WMS (MapServer version 5.6.1 on Ubuntu 10.04), serving a set of shapefiles. The basic approach is to have a pair of layers for each class of highways - interstate, US highways, state highways, local roads, etc. One layer in each pair draws the geometry, the other draws the labels. In this way, the user can turn the labels on and off, as needed. I'm having a problem with highway labels showing up nowhere near where the highways are. At my outermost zoom, all I'm displaying is the major highway geometry and the interstate names. That works OK. When I zoom in a bit, to where I start displaying the US highway names, I see names all over the place, drawn where there are no geometries. I zoom in a bit more, and they go away. (I'm viewing this with Quantum GIS, loading the maps as WMS layers). To help track down what is going on, I took one of the names, did an ogrinfo -where to identify that there was, in fact, a featured with that name in the US highways shapefile. I then extracted just those features into a new shapefile, using ogr2ogr, and then loaded that as a vector layer in Quantum GIS. The aim was to find out where the feature that matched that name actually was. It was nowhere near the label. I set the new vector layer to draw in red, and it was easy to see. With a label from the WMS properly drawn alongside. But 75+ miles away, 600+ pixels across the map, was another label for that feature, nowhere near the feature it was supposed to be describing. I've never seen anything quite like this. But then, I'm just figuring out how to use mapserver to serve WMS. Are there any known gotchas, when drawing label layers in WMS? ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
[mapserver-users] Layer ordering in WMS
I'm trying to figure out how to configure layer ordering when using Mapserver using WMS. I'm not at all certain I've figured it out, yet, but one thing is clear - it's very complicated, depending upon the ordering of the layers in the mapfile, which groups the layers are a part of, whether the layers are configured with a status of ON or DEFAULT, and the ordering of the layers in the WMS request. Is there some place in the documentation that explains all of this, or have I just missed it? ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
