Publishing to the OGC WMS Specification Using MapServer

MapServer is an Open Source web mapping engine, and its homepage is located at the UMN MapServer site. The following instructions will assist you with your MapServer experience.

Installation

Windows

The simplest way to install MapServer on Win32 is to use the MS4W utility, which contains a ready-to-use MapServer installation, as well as an Apache Web Server. Simply extract the zipfile to the root of your drive, start the Apache Server and you're running MapServer!

Linux, Mac, and Other Platforms

See the MapServer Compilation Wiki page for for install instructions on various platforms.

Configuration

WMS requests are handled by the "mapserv" CGI program. Not all versions of the mapserv program do include WMS support (it is included by default when you compile together with the PROJ library), so the first step is to check that your mapserv executable includes WMS support. One way to verify this is to use the "-v" command-line switch and look for "SUPPORTS=WMS_SERVER".

Example 1. On Unix:

   $ ./mapserv -v
   MapServer version 4.2-beta1 OUTPUT=GIF OUTPUT=PNG OUTPUT=JPEG OUTPUT=WBMP
   OUTPUT=PDF OUTPUT=SWF SUPPORTS=PROJ SUPPORTS=FREETYPE SUPPORTS=WMS_SERVER
   SUPPORTS=WMS_CLIENT SUPPORTS=WFS_SERVER SUPPORTS=WFS_CLIENT INPUT=POSTGIS
   INPUT=OGR INPUT=GDAL INPUT=SHAPEFILE


Example 2. On Windows:

   C:\apache\cgi-bin> mapserv -v
   MapServer version 4.2-beta1 OUTPUT=GIF OUTPUT=PNG OUTPUT=JPEG OUTPUT=WBMP
   OUTPUT=PDF OUTPUT=SWF SUPPORTS=PROJ SUPPORTS=FREETYPE SUPPORTS=WMS_SERVER
   SUPPORTS=WMS_CLIENT SUPPORTS=WFS_SERVER SUPPORTS=WFS_CLIENT INPUT=POSTGIS
   INPUT=OGR INPUT=GDAL INPUT=SHAPEFILE
   

Develop MapServer Mapfile

MapServer's .map files control data appearance and symbology. The task is for you to be able to take your own data and load it into a mapfile for MapServer to display the data. There are several resources that will assist you:

• MapFile Reference Doc - The main list of mapfile parameters.

• MapLab - An Open Source suite of tools that helps you develop a mapfile. A sample mapfile and tutorial is included.
• Getting Started with MapServer workshop - A good intro, and contains sample data.

Loading Different Types of Data Into MapServer

MapServer can read many different data formats directly, without any data conversions. Below is a list of resources depending on the format of your data.

• Tabular Data in txt, csv, Access, or other database - MapServer can read directly from spatial databases now, as long as there are X and Y coordinate columns for the data. The same goes for simple text files.

• Vector data such as ESRI Shapfiles, MapInfo files, TIGER, DGN - Again MapServer can read many formats directly. The link provided is a good reference that goes through many of the supported formats, with examples.
• Raster data such as ArcInfo Grid, GRASS, ERDAS - MapServer can read many raster formats without any data conversion. This document will give you an excellent intro.

Configuring Your MapFile to Serve Your Data Through the OGC's WMS Specification

Once you have your data ready to be displayed and you are ready to share it with other Gulf Of Maine members, you now have to configure your MapServer to serve your data through the Web Map Service standard. Here are some good links that will help you:

• MapServer's WMS HowTo document - This document outlines how to configure your mapfile to serve your layers through WMS.

• MapServer OGC Services Workshop - A good workshop on the OGC Services supported by MapServer.
• OGC WMS Specification document - A good resource if you can make some sense of it.