[mapserver-dev] News on MapServer SLD and MapCache

[jbo-ads]

Hi all,

I would like to apologize for not having been active on MapServer SLD 
these months. I am busy on more urgent activities from my client, mainly 
related to MapCache performance. I hope to deliver a synthesis on the 
form of a wiki page (which to my surprise has not been initiated yet on 
MapCache).

On this side, I am fixing some bugs and adding configurable features to 
better control how MapCache retrieves and assembles tiles from its 
caches depending on each situation.

I am also developing feature requests that arise in the broader context 
of these activities.

The first one is about a cache structure involving multi-SQLite caches 
organized in multiple pyramids: one single pyramid from zoom levels 0 to 
7, then as many pyramids as tiles at zoom level 8. Each of these 
pyramids starts with one tile at zoom level 8, then four tiles at zoom 
level 9 and so on. Of course the top zoom level value is configurable. I 
like to name this cache structure "Z-top". My question is: Do you think 
it deserves a RFC?

The second one is about allowed values in MapCache implementation of 
WMS/WMTS dimensions. Currently, dimensions values are sanitized so that 
'.' (dot) and '/' (slash) characters are replaced by '#' (is it sharp or 
hash in english?). However my client (and others I've heard of) would 
like to use file paths as dimension values in order to store cache 
locations without being constrained to put them all in a single 
directory. I feel a bit reluctant about this because I suspect this 
change would introduce a security hole in MapCache, by potentially 
giving access to server's filesystem. I would like to open the 
discussion with you about how to provide this feature without 
compromising security.

Jérome.