[mapserver-users] How to deal with (visible) CONNECTION information in .MAP file for WMS purposes

[Stefan Schwarzer]

Hi there,

I am wondering how to deal with the CONNECTION information in the .MAP which is used for WMS requests. As the .MAP file must be visible and is readable, the CONNECTION information for my database is readable too.

	    # Layers definition ---------------------
	    LAYER
	        NAME wilderness_areas_po 
			METADATA
				'wcs_label'           'Wilderness Areas'
				'wcs_rangeset_name'   'test'
				'wcs_rangeset_label'  'test label'
			END
	        TYPE RASTER
	        STATUS OFF
	        DATA wilderness_areas_po
	        CONNECTIONTYPE postgis
	        CONNECTION 'user=my_username password=my_password dbname=my_database' 			
	        PROJECTION
	            'init=epsg:4326'
	        END
		END 


Either I would then need to create a very simple user for that case which really only can read the data, or I should hide the file in a directory which is not readable by a webuser. But I guess that Mapserver wouldn't like that.

What are your recommendations?

Thanks for any hints.

Stefan