[MapServer-users] Can MapServer cache directly to AWS S3?

Mon Mar 10 17:37:15 PDT 2025

Hey Rob,

Couple things. It's best to keep the discussion on the list so that all
subscribers can participate. And this discussion has drifted pretty far
from the original subject about using S3 for tile caching.

MapServer and MapCache can certainly be run on the same server and MapCache
can certainly serve WMS, XYZ Tiles, UTF Grids, etc. but the HTML requests
have to identify which service they want. I think your server must be set
to default to WMS in the Apache config so you need to add additional
options. These are often called "end points" or "routes". Apache has a lot
of different ways that you can do this, which is great, but can also be
challenging when you're getting started. So check out the MapCache
documentation and then come back to the list with specific questions that
we can help with.

Rich

On Mon, Mar 10, 2025 at 7:29 AM Rob Dennett <Rob.Dennett at twdb.texas.gov>
wrote:

> We use an Apache conf file very similar to what's found in the CampToCamp
> repo:
> https://github.com/camptocamp/docker-mapserver/blob/master/runtime/etc/apache2/conf-enabled/mapserver.conf
>
> It uses ScriptAliasMatch to call a wrapper script which invokes mapserv in
> turn, followed by a LocationMatch which sets up mod_fcgid.  We changed ours
> to ignore some temporary directories, including one where we write cached
> tiles using IMAGEPATH.
>
> Our app describes links for WMS, XYZ Tile Service, UTF Grid Service, and
> MVT service.  Are the last three not something you can use with MapCache,
> or am I misunderstanding what a "source" is?
>
> Thanks,
> Rob
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Richard Greenwood <richard.greenwood at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, March 7, 2025 9:30 AM
> *To:* Rob Dennett <Rob.Dennett at twdb.texas.gov>
> *Subject:* Re: [MapServer-users] Can MapServer cache directly to AWS S3?
>
>
> External: Beware of links/attachments.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 7, 2025 at 8:03 AM Rob Dennett <Rob.Dennett at twdb.texas.gov>
> wrote:
>
> Currently, an example of a URL used by one of our front-end apps is
>
>
> https://myserver.com?map=example.map&mode=tile&tilemode=gmap&tile={x}+{y}+{z}&layers=all&map.imagetype=png
> <https://myserver.com?map=example.map&mode=tile&tilemode=gmap&tile=%7Bx%7D+%7By%7D+%7Bz%7D&layers=all&map.imagetype=png>
>
> For the XYZ Tile service.
>
> For WMS, it looks like
> https:// <https://mapserver.tnris.org/?map=/tnris_mapfiles/area_type.map>
> myserver.com/?map=
> <https://mapserver.tnris.org/?map=/tnris_mapfiles/area_type.map>example
> .map <https://mapserver.tnris.org/?map=/tnris_mapfiles/area_type.map>
>
> I am not sure how that would map back to a URL like /cgi-bin/mapserv.fcgi
>
> Would it be just
> <url>https://myserver.com/</url>?
>
>
> Can't say for sure. Your web server obviously has some configuration that
> is directing requests to "/" (the root of the server) to the mapserv
> binary. In other words, your server has some additional configuration setup
> that is routing requests in a non-standard way. By "non-standard" I don't
> mean it's wrong, just that without seeing your web server configuration we
> can only guess at the routing.
>
> Rich
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Richard Greenwood <richard.greenwood at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, March 7, 2025 8:44 AM
> *To:* Rob Dennett <Rob.Dennett at twdb.texas.gov>
> *Cc:* mapserver <mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [MapServer-users] Can MapServer cache directly to AWS S3?
>
>
> External: Beware of links/attachments.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 7, 2025 at 7:29 AM Rob Dennett <Rob.Dennett at twdb.texas.gov>
> wrote:
>
> So, can you have both the MapCache module and the MapServer CGI script
> running on the same Apache server?
>
>
> Sure. There's no conflict.
>
>
> Is there an example showing how to configure this?
>
>
> Look at the MapCache documentation. MapCache is configured with an xml
> file. If MapServer is on the same server then you'd have a statement in the
> the "source" section like:
>      <source name="something" type="wms">
>           . . .
>           <url>http://localhost/cgi-bin/mapserv.fcgi</url>
>           . . .
>      </source>
>
>
> We have a bunch of front ends which use our MapServer (it's
> customer-facing, too) and I am not clear if all those URLs would have to
> change.
>
>
> Your app makes requests to https://youserver/mapcache for tiles or
> https://yourserver/cgi-bin/mapserv.fcgi for non-tiles requests. MapCache
> is reading and writing to and from S3, your app is not directly access S3.
>
> Rich
>
>
>
> Thanks,
> Rob
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Richard Greenwood <richard.greenwood at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, March 7, 2025 7:44 AM
> *To:* Rob Dennett <Rob.Dennett at twdb.texas.gov>
> *Cc:* mapserver <mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [MapServer-users] Can MapServer cache directly to AWS S3?
>
>
> External: Beware of links/attachments.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2025, 3:27 PM Rob Dennett via MapServer-users <
> mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
> Does MapCache have to be built from source?
>
>
> Probably not. If you're on Linux it will be in your distribution's repo.
> Not sure about Windows or Mac.
>
> Also, does it have to be it's own server?
>
>
> MapCache is a module that the Apache web server runs.
>
>   It's not clear to me how it connects with MapServer.  Is it the case
> that MapServer renders tiles as necessary based on requests and then
> MapCache serves those files if requested again?
>
>
> No. Apache passes tile requests to MapCache. If MapCache has the tile it
> gets returned. If MapCache doesn't have the tile it makes a WMS request to
> MapServer, saves the tile in its cache and returns the tile to the web
> server. MapCache can save the tile on the local file system, S3 or
> elsewhere. You configure where it saves the cached tiles.
>
> As mentioned, MapServer is currently storing tiles in a directory mapped
> to S3 which is specified by IMAGEPATH.
>
>
> Using MapCache you don't need IMAGEPATH.
>
>
> These tiles are not pre-seeded, so I can't specify a particular raster or
> vector file to serve from S3.  I don't think I understand how caching is
> supposed to work with S3 in the way we're doing it.  Can you simply specify
> a folder in S3 where cached data lives and have MapServer render anything
> that doesn't exist yet?
>
>
> If you are trying to serve tiles directly from S3 by making tile requests
> directly to the S3 bucket that is a whole different thing and not supported
> by MapCache.
>
> HTH,
> Rich
>
>
>
> Thanks,
> Rob
> ------------------------------
> *From:* MapServer-users <mapserver-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on
> behalf of Scott via MapServer-users <mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 5, 2025 11:50 AM
> *To:* mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org <mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [MapServer-users] Can MapServer cache directly to AWS S3?
>
> External: Beware of links/attachments.
>
>
>
> You can store any raster/vector file format supported by GDAL on S3 and
> use it via MapServer. Note the /vsis3 virtual connection:
>
> Raster:
> DATA "/vsis3/myS3Bucket/raster.tif"
>
> Vector:
> CONNECTION "/vsis3/myS3Bucket/vector.fgb"
>
> MapServer is definitely a WMS server. Any OGC compliant WMS url can be
> parsed and processed. Using MapCache along MapServer is highly desirable
> as all subsequent WMS requests are cached. Further, you can seed any
> cache directly with MapCache.
>
> Scott
>
>
> On 3/5/25 07:57, Rob Dennett via MapServer-users wrote:
> > Is it possible to cache tiles  to and serve them from S3 buckets?  We
> > currently mount S3 folders in EC2 instances one of which is the
> > directory we specify in MAP/IMAGEPATH, but it requires us to use s3fs-
> > fuse and that means we have to use EC2 as opposed to Fargate, which we
> > would prefer.  Can MapServer act as a client to S3?
> >
> > I have been looking at MapCache, and as far as I can tell, it's a
> > separate server that works alongside a WMS server, although I am not
> > sure that MapServer counts as a WMS server.  We use it to serve geoJSON,
> > UTF grid, etc.  Is it what we want to use for this?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Rob
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > MapServer-users mailing list
> > MapServer-users at lists.osgeo.org
> > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
>
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>
>
> --
> Richard W. Greenwood
> www.greenwoodmap.com
>
>
>
> --
> Richard W. Greenwood
> www.greenwoodmap.com
>

-- 
Richard W. Greenwood
www.greenwoodmap.com
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