Quick-start guide

To build a new Mapfish Appserver application, create a Rails application and include mapfish_appserver in your Gemfile:

rails new mfdemo --database=postgresql --skip-bundle --skip-javascript
cd mfdemo
echo "gem 'therubyracer', :platforms => :ruby" >>Gemfile
echo "gem 'gb_mapfish_appserver'" >>Gemfile
echo "gem 'gb_mapfish_print'" >>Gemfile
echo "gem 'ruby_mapscript', :platforms => :ruby" >>Gemfile
bundle install

Also make sure, you have MapScript installed:

sudo apt-get install libmapscript-ruby1.9.1

Setup the Mapfish project, initialize the application database:

rake db:create
rails generate mapfish:install --default-site-name=maps.example.com

Keep the admin password for later.

Generate a basic viewer:

rake mapfish:viewer:create name=myviewer repo=https://github.com/mapfish-appserver/gb_mapfish_viewer_gis_browser.git
rm public/index.html

Add a default route to your viewer in config/routes.rb:

root :to => "apps#show", :app => "myviewer"

Setup a PostGIS database and load some data:

export PGPORT=5432
createdb geodb
psql -d geodb -c "CREATE EXTENSION postgis"
psql -d geodb -c "GRANT ALL ON geometry_columns TO PUBLIC; GRANT ALL ON geography_columns TO PUBLIC; GRANT ALL ON spatial_ref_sys TO PUBLIC"
wget http://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/10m/cultural/ne_10m_admin_0_countries_lakes.zip
unzip ne_10m_admin_0_countries_lakes.zip
ogr2ogr -f PostgreSQL PG:"dbname=geodb" -nln countries -nlt MULTIPOLYGON ne_10m_admin_0_countries_lakes.shp
psql -d geodb -c "GRANT ALL ON countries TO PUBLIC"

Create a mapfile naturalearth.map in the directory mapconfig/maps.example.com:

MAP
  NAME naturalearth

  WEB
    METADATA
      "wms_title"                  "Natural Earth"
      "wms_onlineresource"         "http://wms.example.com/naturalearth"
      "wms_srs"                    "EPSG:4326 EPSG:3857 EPSG:21781"
      "wms_extent"                 "-180 -90 180 90"
      "wms_feature_info_mime_type" "application/vnd.ogc.gml"
      'ows_enable_request'    '*'
      "wms_encoding"               "UTF-8"
    END
    IMAGEPATH '/tmp/'
    IMAGEURL '/tmp/'
  END

  SIZE 512 512
  MAXSIZE 8192
  RESOLUTION 96
  DEFRESOLUTION 96

  UNITS DD
  PROJECTION
    "init=epsg:4326"
  END

  EXTENT -180 -90 180 90

  IMAGECOLOR 255 255 255

  #SYMBOLSET "../symbols/base.sym"
  #FONTSET   "../fonts/fonts.txt"

  IMAGETYPE png

  OUTPUTFORMAT
    NAME png
    DRIVER "AGG/PNG"
    IMAGEMODE rgb
    FORMATOPTION "INTERLACE=OFF"
  END

  LAYER
    NAME 'countries'
    METADATA
      "wms_title"                       "Countries"
      "wms_srs"                         "EPSG:4326"
      "wms_extent"                      "-180 -90 180 90"
      "wms_include_items"               "name,pop_est"
      "gml_include_items"               "name,pop_est"
      "gml_name_alias"                  "Name"
      "gml_pop_est_alias"               "Population"
    END
    TEMPLATE "blank.html"

    EXTENT -180 -90 180 90
    MINSCALEDENOM 1
    MAXSCALEDENOM 500000000.5

    STATUS ON
    TYPE POLYGON
    CONNECTIONTYPE postgis
    CONNECTION "dbname=geodb port=5432"
    DATA "wkb_geometry FROM countries USING UNIQUE ogc_fid"

    CLASS
      NAME 'All countries'
      STYLE
        WIDTH 0.91 
        OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0
        COLOR 0 255 0
      END
    END
  END

END

Check your WMS setup:

#sudo apt-get install cgi-mapserver
wget -O map.png "http://localhost/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=$(pwd)/mapconfig/maps.example.com/naturalearth.map&SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetMap&BBOX=-90,-180,90,180&CRS=EPSG:4326&WIDTH=706&HEIGHT=354&LAYERS=countries&STYLES=&FORMAT=image/png"

Open config/initializers/mapfish.rb to configure your application.

Import the mapfile into a new topic:

rake mapfile:import_topic MAPFILE=mapconfig/maps.example.com/naturalearth.map SITE=maps.example.com

Start the application server and open your first viewer application in your web browser:

rails server
x-www-browser localhost:3000/

To access the backend:

x-www-browser localhost:3000/gbadmin

Login as ‘admin’ with with the generated password. After your first login you will be redirected back to the root path. Go to http://localhost:3000/gbadmin/user/1/edit to change the password.