Question about wms and mapfile location/restriction

[Kralidis,Tom [Burlington]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List 
> [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of B Tuttle
> Sent: 04 October, 2006 5:49 PM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Question about wms and mapfile 
> location/restriction
> 
> Hi all-
> 
> Part1-
>     So far to use wms I have to have the mapfile in the same 
> direcotry as mapserv. Any thoughts on how to set it up so I 
> can have my mapfile in a differnet location?
> 

You can have the mapfile anywhere on the filesystem, and refer to it in
your WMS server URL as:

http://host/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/path/to/mapfile.map

This is a legal OGC WMS server URL, which would be visible in your
Capabilities XML.

Note you can also hide the mapfile location if you wish (see:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/howto/wms_server/#more-about-the-onlin
e-resource-url for more info).

> Part 2-
>     I need to set up my server so some mapfiles are available 
> to anyone and some are password restricted. Is there a way to 
> use a config file or multiple instances of mapserv to suggest 
> what mapfile (or direcotry hieracrhies) it can access?
> 

You can use multiple instances of mapserv and apply authentication rules
to them via your web server configuration.

Or, you can use the new Mapscript WxS API, which allows for the OGC
specs API to be exposed through scripting languages like python, perl,
php, and java.  The API will allow you to work in between the request /
response chain.  Here you can develop an authentication layer of sorts.
See http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/howto/wxs_mapscript for more info.
This is relatively new functionality in MapServer/mapscript and not
extensively tested.

> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>