Can anyone email a MapServer cgi binary package for redhat?

Fri Sep 7 09:57:29 EDT 2007

Good points Barend.  

I would also add that while building ArcIMS from source on a Windows machine.  The user should not have admin rights, access to many of the directories, or access to all of the applications/services running on the machine.  

To be serious (and maybe constructive), you are looking for a way to build or install software in an environment that has purposely been set up to prevent or discourage the installation of custom software.  Shared hosts usually set up their permissions schemes for a reason.  If you were to go with a host that offered MapServer services, or a host that would provide a virtual server that included 'admin' rights, you could install/run MapServer.  

The FGS Linux installer makes it pretty easy to install MapServer on a linux machine.  Assuming that you have permissions to install software on the machine.  (it won't likely work on a shared host).  http://www.maptools.org/fgs/  It doesn't look like FGS is being kept up to date on versions though.  

David.

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of Barend Köbben
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 9:18 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Can anyone email a MapServer cgi binary package for redhat?

Hi peter,

You have some point, but don't do an honest comparison of course. Have you tried building ArcIMS from source...? I'm pretty sure even the ESRI people have problems with that!

You should compare installing ArcIMS (for windows only) with an pre-compiled Mapserver package for windows only) , say MS4W. The latter involves unzipping one archive, and you have a working installation.

I'm also no Linux user, but I know pre-packaged version exist, just as they exist for Windows (http://www.maptools.org/ms4w/) and MacOSX ( http://www.kyngchaos.com/)...

__ 
Barend Köbben
International Institute for Geo-information
Sciences and Earth Observation (ITC)
PO Box 6, 7500AA Enschede (The Netherlands)
ph: +31 (0)53 4874253; fax: +31 (0)53 4874335

On 07-09-2007 03:35, "Peter Shrock" <thesl at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Dear Tara:
> 
> I do not know Linux, However, the approach I wanted to take is valid, 
> if you could read Novell's tech paper: 
> http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/11775.html
> 
> Our MapServer Expert Frank Warmerdam also recommended the same 
> approach.
> 
> IMHO, this kind of package may be very important for our MapServer 
> community.
> 
> A few years ago, a friend told me that a student spent three weeks to 
> get mapserver installed. I laughed, as I though that should be a 
> 20-minutes work (at least it is true for ArcIMS, let alone ArcIMS's 
> comprehensie functions). Now, I have spent two months, and did not get 
> it work. Considering human resource cost, MapServer is actually more 
> expensive than ArcIMS.
> 
> Would it make sense for the The annual Free and Open Source Software 
> for Geospatial (FOSS4G) conference discuss this in its coming 
> conference?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- Tara Athan <tara_athan at ALT2IS.COM> wrote:
> 
>> Peter- there should be quite a few message in the archives over the 
>> last two weeks where I was getting advice from this list about 
>> installing mapserver on a shared hosting plan.  I tried quite a few 
>> things, including FWTOOLS as well as building from scratch.  I could 
>> never get the extra libraries recognized as they were needed. It 
>> appears that mapserver is not ready for the shared hosting 
>> environment, unless you are so experienced at Linux system 
>> adminstration that you can figure out on your own how to circumvent 
>> all the limitations of your particular service.  Or perhaps it is the 
>> documentation of how to do it that is the gap.  Either way, after 
>> investing considerable hours and attempting all proposed solutions 
>> kindly suggested by this list, I gave up.
>> 
>> I am now trying out a mapserver hosting service in addition to my 
>> shared host service. I choose not to move all of my pages to the 
>> mapserver hosting service, because the shared hosting service offers 
>> quite a few things that the mapserver services do not, plus I have 
>> several sites in the middle of transition to CMS and it was just too 
>> complicated.  If you haven't got too much invested with your shared 
>> hosting plan, you could drop them entirely and move your whole site 
>> to a mapserver hosting service, as that would be cheaper, (although 
>> not as cheap as most shared hosting plans!)  Good luck.
>> 
>> If you do somehow manage to get mapserver installed on your shared 
>> host service, please post the details as it would benefit many 
>> others.
>> 
>> Tara
>> 
>> 
>> Peter Shrock wrote:
>>> Hello, all:
>>> 
>>> I purchased a shard hosting plan a few months ago, and wnted to 
>>> implement mapserver. Due to the nature of shared hosting, all I can 
>>> do is to upload files. it is unfortunate that they do not allow 
>>> compiling, installtion, or change of environmental variables.
>>> 
>>> I have been looking around for about a month, and have not found a 
>>> solution yet.
>>> 
>>> I tried FWTOOLS, using the approach that Frank Warmerdam indicated 
>>> (below),
>> but
>>> with no luck.
>>> 
>>> - upload mapserv executable and all the shared libraries somewhere.
>>> - upload proj.4 support files (like epsg init file) somewhere
>>> - create a mapserv wrapper script in the cgi-bin directory which sets
>>>    environment variables pointing to various things and then executes
>>>    the real mapserv binary.  Environment variables would include:
>>>      LD_LIBRARY_PATH: needs to point to directory with all the .so files.
>>>      PROJ_LIB: needs to point to directory with the proj support 
>>> files.
>>> 
>>> Now I have to come back to this mailing list for help.  Basically, I 
>>> am
>> looking
>>> for the mapserver cgi and the SO files (for libpng, freetype, libgd,  
>>> Zlib, Proj4, GEOS, GDAL). I will use a wrapper script to define the 
>>> location of
>> the
>>> dependencies, using Frank Warmerdam's suggestions.
>>> 
>>> I will appreciate it if anyone can email me this type of binary 
>>> package. Honestly, I do not know if such package exists.
>>> 
>>> Thank you
>>> 
>>> Peter
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>      
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> --
>> My e-mail delivery has been unreliable lately, so I am asking for
>> return receipts from all my email messages.
>> OK'ing the return receipt lets me know that my message was delivered.
>> Thank you.
>> 
>> Tara Athan
>> Principal, Alternatives to Invasive Species tara_athan at alt2is.com
>> 707-485-1198
>> PO Box 415
>> Redwood Valley, CA 95470
>> 
> 
> 
> 
>        
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