[Qgis-developer] feature-request: qgis-desktop -> qgis-server integration

[Richard Duivenvoorde]

On 07/11/2011 10:43 AM, Andreas Neumann wrote:
> I can see value in this for certain users, but on the other hand I see a
> lot of complexity that I do not know how to solve. Servers have
> different ways to transfer files. My own server only accepts scp/sftp
> connections, not ftp. In house server are maybe accepting nfs or samba
> shares, or may even share the same location between desktop and server
> (in my case) in which no file transfer is necessary. Then there is the
> security issue with storing login information. In the case of scp/sftp
> we can do a key exchange, but this also makes the process harder for the
> user. Also, there are firewall issues. At my employer everything except
> port 80 and 443 is blocked and we need to go through a proxy. For this
> reason, my external server listens at port 443 for ssh/scp/sftp
> connections.
> 
> Next to the .qgs project file and linked data sources, there is also the
> need to copy symbol or font resources: ttf files and svg symbols.
> 
> And finally: WMS and db resources may be different between internal and
> external server. I personally use a pg_service definition instead of the
> hostname. The service name is identical on both servers, but the
> hostname is different. For WMS servers I do not have a solution. I have
> to use find/replace for these .qgs files using different WMS.
> 
> Any idea how to manage this complexity? I think it would be worthwile
> trying to solve the issues, but it is not trivial.

I Andreas, thanks for your thoughts.

With this 'feature' I do not want to introduce a solution for all use
cases, but just a (in my eyes) little step in that direction ;-)

In my ideal Qgis-world qgis becomes some kind of round-trip solution:
1) build a nice map in qgis
2) post data + project file to a running qgis-server
3) look/admire at the wms-service using qgis
4) maybe do some adjustments to color/style -> GOTO 2 again

So for example:
- for the transfer of qgs-file and data, I do NOT want to introduce a
new end-point on (or protocol/port to) the server, I want just that
qgis-desktop connects to qgis-server (over normal port 80) and instead
of only GET-ting images and tiles als POST/PUT stuff to the same server.
That is the way Geoserver is working: you just POST/PUT to the same
endpoint, only adding some authentication.

- my use case is smaller scanned historical maps: so no fonts or symbols
needed for that (just a Geotiff in a directory 'myMap' with next to it a
.qgs project file pointing to the ./mytiff.tiff relative to the data)

- off course there will be troubles/details that are harder to handle,
but for example fonts and symbols are/can probably be mirrored on server
and client. Another option would be to put them next to the .qgs-file
and data-file(s) in the 'myMap'-directory

- there are off course troubles with larger dataset which are harder to
PUT/send to a service-endpoint. But 'mirroring' some data-directory on
client and server (/data/qgis/mymap1, /data/qgis/mymap2 etc) would solve
this problem.

- large database keep being a problem (though a ssh-tunnel to a database
and pointing to localhost:54320 in both qgis and server would be a quick
and dirty solution). Your pg_service definition sounds smarter though.

All this will never solve all (my) problems, but it can be a start ;-)

Regards

Richard Duivenvoorde