Tile Server (2012)
The Planimate Map object enables the use of tiled map data in models. These notes describe the setup of a map tile web server which can be used with Planimate or other open Street Maps projects.
This is an update to the 2011 Tile Server Guide, which is now obsolete. The references section contains sources from which this content was derived.
Setting up the VM
Start with Ubuntu 12.04 Server (AMD 64). I used the 'mini' CD image, using a network install. My initial VM settings: 3GB of RAM, 32GB HDD and bridged networking. I did the most basic install.
For the Australia region only, you can probably get by with 20GB HDD. For the world, you'd need over 1TB.
I gave the VM plenty of RAM for the osm2pgsl import stage (see below). Since then I've shrunk the VM's RAM configuration to 1GB which is more than plenty for a small scale test server.
Login at the console to finish initial setup, you want to lock down its IP address. ('ifconfig' gives you current). Edit /etc/network/interfaces, substituting your network details.
sudo apt-get install vim openssh-server sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.18 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.0.100
After this execute
sudo ifdown eth0; ifup eth0
You can now use a terminal like PuTTY to log in.
At this time you might like to edit /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts to give your tile server a name. I called mine 'maps'. From other machines, I referred to it by ip-address.
Setting Up The Environment
Installation
We use the mapnik repo to get the latest boost library.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo apt-get install subversion autoconf unzip sudo apt-get install python-software-properties sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mapnik/boost sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install libboost-dev libboost-filesystem-dev \ libboost-program-options-dev libboost-python-dev \ libboost-regex-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev \ g++ cpp libicu-dev libboost-filesystem-dev \ libboost-program-options-dev \ libboost-python-dev libboost-regex-dev \ libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev \ python-dev libxml2 libxml2-dev \ libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev \ libjpeg-dev \ libltdl7 libltdl-dev \ libpng-dev \ libgeotiff-dev libtiff-dev libtiffxx0c2 \ libcairo2 libcairo2-dev python-cairo python-cairo-dev \ libcairomm-1.0-1 libcairomm-1.0-dev \ ttf-unifont ttf-dejavu ttf-dejavu-core ttf-dejavu-extra \ git build-essential python-nose libtool libgeos-dev libpq-dev \ libbz2-dev proj \ libgdal1-dev python-gdal \ postgresql-9.1 postgresql-server-dev-9.1 postgresql-contrib-9.1 \ postgresql-9.1-postgis libsqlite3-dev
NOTE: You can use this to check the boost version
apt-cache policy libboost-dev
Create work folders and fetch Map Data
cd ~ mkdir src bin planet
If you're building a small test server, you want an extract. Otherwise you can download a complete planet.osm file here.
Don't let the size of the file fool you, the database expands by 50x its size.
This downloads the latest planet file:
cd ~/planet wget http://planet.openstreetmap.org/planet-latest.osm.bz2
Or here's an Australia extract:
cd ~/planet wget http://download.geofabrik.de/osm/australia-oceania.osm.bz2
NOTE:If you're intending to keep your database up to date, you might want to download your first planet file from planet.openstreetmap.org (or a mirror), keeping track of its date in its filename, eg: planet-110803.osm.bz2. Knowing the date is important if you intend to set up incremental updates (not covered in this article).
NOTE:Don't decompress the file, the tools work on it directly.
Prepare the postGIS database
The osm2pgsql tool imports the osm data into the database, the latest source is needed as mapnik expects certain columns.
cd ~/bin svn co http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/utils/export/osm2pgsql/ cd osm2pgsql ./autogen.sh ./configure make
Configure the PostGIS database
Edit /etc/postgresql/9.1/main/postgresql.conf in four places. These changes help with the large quantities of data that we are using.
shared_buffers = 128MB checkpoint_segments = 20 maintenance_work_mem = 256MB autovacuum = off
Edit kernel parameter shmmax to increase maximum size of shared memory.
sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf Add or change this line: kernel.shmmax = 268435456 Then save and load into kernel: sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf
Restart postgres to enable the changes
sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart
It should report:
* Restarting PostgreSQL 9.1 database server
Create a database called "gis". Some of our future tools presume that you will use this database name. Substitute your username for "username" in two places below. This should be the username that will render maps with mapnik.
sudo -u postgres -i createuser username # answer yes for superuser createdb -E UTF8 -O username gis createlang plpgsql gis exit
Set up PostGIS on the database.
psql -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-1.5/postgis.sql -d gis
This should respond with many lines ending with
...CREATE FUNCTION COMMIT ... DROP FUNCTION
Substitute your username for "username" in two places in the next line. This should be the user account that will render maps with mapnik.
echo "ALTER TABLE geometry_columns OWNER TO username; ALTER TABLE spatial_ref_sys OWNER TO username;" | psql -d gis
Should reply with
ALTER TABLE ALTER TABLE
Set the Spatial Reference Identifier (SRID) on the new database.
psql -f ~/bin/osm2pgsql/900913.sql -d gis
Should reply with
INSERT 0 1
Import data into the database with osm2pgsql
In case you have problems, these are the parameters
-S sets the style name.
--slim is mandatory as osm files are large these days. It also allows future incremental updates.
-d sets the data base name.
-C sets RAM cache size in MB. If your VM has 3GB of RAM, 2048 is OK. adjust it accordingly if your machine has less/more RAM.
Replace ~/planet/filename.osm.bz2 with the location of your planet or extract file.
cd ~/bin/osm2pgsql ./osm2pgsql -S default.style --slim -d gis -C 2048 ~/planet/filename.osm.bz2
Loading the planet file will take between an hour for a country and a few days for the whole world. Fast disks and a lot of RAM help most.
The import starts with NOTICES which are normal. Next, osm2pgsql will start reading the compressed planet file and give progress reports. It will take days for the entire world.You'll see:
Processing: Node(10140k) Way(0k) Relation(0k)
You may see errors like this:
Processing: Node(593072k) Way(45376k) Relation(87k) Exception caught processing way id=110802 Exception caught processing way id=110803 Processing: Node(593072k) Way(45376k) Relation(474k)
This is OK, just minor errors in the OSM data. It should all end with some Completed lines and a Stopped Table message.
Install Mapnik library
The Mapnik library is the first of two items sometimes called "Mapnik". The other item is a collection of tools that OpenStreetMap uses to invoke the library.
This compiles the mapnik library. It takes quite a while. I do it in parallel with importing the map data.
cd ~/src git clone http://github.com/mapnik/mapnik cd mapnik ./configure make sudo make install
Confirm that Mapnik library is installed.
python >>> import mapnik >>>
If python replies with the second chevron prompt ">>>" and without errors, then the library was found by Python. Congratulations.
Install Mapnik tools
The Mapnik tools are the second item sometimes called "mapnik". This is a collection of tools from OpenStreetMap for making effective use of the Mapnik library.
cd ~/bin svn co http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik
Install prepared world boundary data
Mapnik uses prepared files to generate coastlines and ocean for small scale maps. This is faster than reading the entire database to render zoom levels from zero to nine.
This section now includes the additional shape files that were added to OpenStreetMap default styles in mid-2010. Beware of the long, strange looking links with the repeated http. They are unlikely to copy / paste directly. Use copy link location or equivalent.
cd ~/bin/mapnik mkdir world_boundaries wget http://tile.openstreetmap.org/world_boundaries-spherical.tgz tar xvzf world_boundaries-spherical.tgz wget http://tile.openstreetmap.org/processed_p.tar.bz2 tar xvjf processed_p.tar.bz2 -C world_boundaries wget http://tile.openstreetmap.org/shoreline_300.tar.bz2 tar xjf shoreline_300.tar.bz2 -C world_boundaries wget http://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/10m/cultural/ne_10m_populated_places.zip unzip ne_10m_populated_places.zip -d world_boundaries wget http://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/110m/cultural/ne_110m_admin_0_boundary_lines_land.zip unzip ne_110m_admin_0_boundary_lines_land.zip -d world_boundaries
Render your first map
The database is loaded and the tools are installed.
Customise generate_image.py with the following changes.
mapfile = "my_osm.xml" bounds = (144.37, -38.0, 144.39, -38.2)
The bounds selected here are the latitude & longitude for the Geelong, Victoria region.
Create a customised OSM file (remember to replace "username" with your username).
cd ~/bin/mapnik ./generate_xml.py osm.xml my_osm.xml --dbname gis --symbols ./symbols/ --world_boundaries ./world_boundaries/ --user username --accept-none
Now the big test.
cd ~/bin/mapnik ./generate_image.py
View "image.png" to confirm that you have rendered a map of Geelong.
Web Server
Now we set up the tile server. The mod_tile module uses a multithreaded version of apache.
sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-threaded-dev
Build Apache Tile Module & renderd
Make sure you are the user that can access the DB, not root.
git clone https://github.com/openstreetmap/mod_tile/ cd mod_tile ./autogen.sh ./configure make sudo make install sudo make install-mod_tile sudo ldconfig sudo mkdir /var/lib/mod_tile sudo chown username /var/lib/mod_tile sudo mkdir /var/run/renderd sudo chown username /var/run/renderd
(if directories already exist, make sure they have write access to the user).
Edit renderd configuration
If its not there already, copy ~/src/mod_tile/renderd.conf to /etc In this setup, both Apache and the renderd program use this configuration file. Edit /etc/renderd.conf as follows.
[renderd] socketname=/var/run/renderd/renderd.sock num_threads=4 tile_dir=/var/lib/mod_tile stats_file=/var/run/renderd/renderd.stats [mapnik] plugins_dir=/usr/local/lib/mapnik/input font_dir=/home/username/src/mapnik/fonts font_dir_recurse=1 [default] URI=/tiles/ XML=/home/username/bin/mapnik/my_osm.xml #HTCPHOST=proxy.openstreetmap.org
TIP: You can add alternate tilesets/layer configurations by adding another section eg:
[tiles2] URI=/tiles2/ XML=/home/username/bin/mapnik/my_osm2.xml
In my test I copied my_osm.xml to my_osm2.xml and disabled some layers by adding attribute status="off" to the Layer elements in the second half of the file.
Set up Apache configuration
Copy the configuration file for mod_tile then edit it:
cd ~/src/mod_tile sudo cp mod_tile.conf /etc/apache2/mods-available sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/mod_tile.conf
The changes are in the first few lines:
- comment this out, we'll load it separately
#LoadModule tile_module modules/mod_tile.so
- change the servername and comment out the alias line
ServerName maps
- update the document root
DocumentRoot /var/www/
- enable the use of the config file in /etc
LoadTileConfigFile /etc/renderd.conf
Thats it for the edits.
Now create a load file for the module and create the links in mods-enabled.
sudo su root echo LoadModule tile_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_tile.so > /etc/apache2/mods-available/mod_tile.load ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/mod_tile.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/mod_tile.load ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/mod_tile.conf /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/mod_tile.conf exit
You can now restart apache and check the module is loaded:
sudo apache2ctl restart
Start renderd
For debugging, do this in a separate window - as regular user, not root.
~/src/mod_tile/renderd -f
We put this (without the -f) into rc.local later.
Testing
From a web browser, navigate to the address of your new server,
You should see something like:
NoResp200: 0 NoResp304: 0 NoResp404: 0 NoResp503: 0 NoResp5XX: 0 NoRespOther: 0 NoFreshCache: 0 :
Now fetch a tile
http://yourserver/URI/0/0/0.png
Where URI matches the value entered into /etc/renderd.conf
If things dont work, check:
- Can renderd write to /var/lib/mod_tile and /var/run/renderd? Have files been created there?
- Check apache's error log
- Is font path correct in renderd.conf
- Any activity in the renderd console window?
Starting Automatically
I inserted this in /etc/rc.local
mkdir /var/run/renderd chown username /var/run/renderd sudo -u username /home/username/src/mod_tile/renderd
Adding a map to view tiles in a browser
Download and install OpenLayers:
cd ~ wget http://openlayers.org/download/OpenLayers-2.10.tar.gz tar -xzvf OpenLayers-2.10.tar.gz cd OpenLayers-2.10 sudo cp OpenLayers.js /var/www sudo cp -r style /var/www sudo cp -r theme /var/www sudo cp examples/style.css /var/www sudo cp examples/osm.html /var/www
Now customise osm.html to our site
sudo vim /var/www/osm.html
The following HTML will give you a full window map with on screen controls.
Change the URI as appropriate, in examples above I used "tiles"
<html>
<head>
<title>OpenLayers Demo</title>
<style type="text/css">
html, body, #basicMap {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
</style>
<script src="OpenLayers.js"></script>
<script>
function init() {
var options = {
projection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:900913"),
displayProjection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:4326"),
units: "m",
maxResolution: 156543.0339,
LonLat: new OpenLayers.LonLat(144.37228,-38.11116),
maxExtent: new OpenLayers.Bounds(-20037508.34, -20037508.34,
20037508.34, 20037508.34),
numZoomLevels: 20,
controls: [
new OpenLayers.Control.Navigation(),
new OpenLayers.Control.PanZoomBar(),
new OpenLayers.Control.Permalink(),
new OpenLayers.Control.ScaleLine(),
new OpenLayers.Control.MousePosition(),
new OpenLayers.Control.KeyboardDefaults()
]
};
map = new OpenLayers.Map("basicMap",options);
var newL = new OpenLayers.Layer.OSM("Default", "/URI/${z}/${x}/${y}.png", {numZoomLevels: 19});
map.addLayer(newL);
map.zoomIn();
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="init();">
<div id="basicMap"></div>
</body>
</html>
You can add: set layer.attribution="whatever"; if you like.
Change the default co-ordinate to somewhere in Australia
...new OpenLayers.LonLat(144.38, -38.10)
Now navigate to http://yourserver/osm.html and you should have a map.
Adding Custom Shape Files
Export the shape files to somewhere accessible by mapnik (eg /home/username/bin/mapnik/ShapeDir)
Add appropriate style rules and layers to the map xml data file (mapnik/my_osm.xml)
<Style name="BerthStyle"> <Rule> <LineSymbolizer> <CssParameter name="stroke">#000000</CssParameter> <CssParameter name="stroke-width">0.4</CssParameter> </LineSymbolizer> </Rule> <Rule> <TextSymbolizer name="name" fontset_name="book-fonts" size="10" fill="rgb(0,0,51)" halo_radius="1" wrap_width="20"></TextSymbolizer> </Rule> <Rule> <PolygonSymbolizer> <CssParameter name="fill">#404040</CssParameter> <CssParameter name="fill-opacity">0.6</CssParameter> </PolygonSymbolizer> </Rule> </Style> <Layer name="geelong-berths-line" srs="+proj=latlong +datum=WGS84"> <StyleName>BerthStyle</StyleName> <Datasource> <Parameter name="file">/home/username/bin/mapnik/geelong/BERTHS/BERTHS_line</Parameter> <Parameter name="type">shape</Parameter> </Datasource> </Layer>
Restart renderd and view the map.
There is some useful information available here which relates to different geo spatial reference systems. To ensure everything will work correctly with OSM then it is best to have the data referenced using the WGS84 datum.
References
This guide was originally based on material from here and here.
If you have problems building the mapnik library, check the guide here for changes:
If you have problems building mod_tile, check here. At the time of writing it did not include the fix for the missing #include.
Thanks to the authors of these guides.