Mapserver mapfiles access

[Kralidis,Tom [Burlington]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Developers List 
> [mailto:MAPSERVER-DEV at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of N'GUESSAN Gretti
> Sent: Tuesday, 26 April, 2005 13:08
> To: MAPSERVER-DEV at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-DEV] Mapserver mapfiles access
> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I may make a mistake while posting this question on this list 
> but I try anyway (sorry ;))
> 
> I am to make a java application which should produce maps for 
> my customer. I chosed mapserver to do so. I encounter a 
> security problem because the customer I work for has a 
> IBM/Zos WAS Server and I am not quite sure to be able to 
> compile mapserver on. So we made a tricky architecture using 
> the Zos server and another one on SUSE in for mapserver. My 
> java application generates a mapfile each time the user makes 
> a request and puts it on the SUSE server and then calls 
> mapserver in order to produce the image. It works great while 
> using NFS mount between Zos and SUSE. In fact for securty 
> reasons, the customer doesn't want me to have this NFS mount 
> so I have to find a solution to give my map to mapserver. I 
> was wondering if it would be possible to directly stream the 
> content of the file in a POST request to mapserver in order 
> to have the image generated without writing physically the 
> mapfile on the disk. If someone could help it would be great.
>
> Gretti N'GUESSAN
> 

You can set mapfile parameters on the fly:

http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/doc44/cgi-reference.html#mapfileURL

We use this approach sometimes where we have a 'bare' mapfile on disk,
with minimal objects set/defined, and everything gets changed as per
above.

..Tom