Data Stores

The app-schema Mapping File requires you to specify your data sources in the sourceDataStores section. For GeoServer simple features, these are configured using the web interface, but because app-schema lacks a web configuration interface, data stores must be configured by editing the mapping file.

Many configuration options may be externalised through the use of Property Interpolation.

The DataStore element

A DataStore configuration consists of

  • an id, which is an opaque identifier used to refer to the data store elsewhere in a mapping file, and

  • one or more Parameter elements, which each contain the name and value of one parameter, and are used to configure the data store.

An outline of the DataStore element:

<DataStore>
     <id>datastore</id>
     <parameters>
         <Parameter>
             <name>...</name>
             <value>...</value>
         </Parameter>
         ...
     </parameters>
</DataStore>

Parameter order is not significant.

Database options

Databases such as PostGIS and Oracle share some common or similar configuration options.

name

Meaning

value examples

dbtype

Database type

postgisng, Oracle

host

Host name or IP address of database server

database.example.org, 192.168.3.12

port

TCP port on database server

Default if omitted: 1521 (Oracle), 5432 (PostGIS)

database

PostGIS/Oracle database

schema

The database schema

user

The user name used to login to the database server

passwd

The password used to login to the database server

Expose primary keys

Columns with primary keys available for mapping

Default is false, set to true to use primary key columns in mapping

PostGIS

Set the parameter dbtype to postgisng to use the PostGIS NG (New Generation) driver bundled with GeoServer 2.0 and later.

Example:

<DataStore>
    <id>datastore</id>
    <parameters>
        <Parameter>
            <name>dbtype</name>
            <value>postgisng</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>host</name>
            <value>postgresql.example.org</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>port</name>
            <value>5432</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>database</name>
            <value>test</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>user</name>
            <value>test</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>passwd</name>
            <value>test</value>
        </Parameter>
    </parameters>
</DataStore>

Note

PostGIS support is included in the main GeoServer bundle, so a separate plugin is not required.

Oracle

Set the parameter dbtype to Oracle to use the Oracle Spatial NG (New Generation) driver compatible with GeoServer 2.0 and later.

Example:

<DataStore>
    <id>datastore</id>
    <parameters>
        <Parameter>
            <name>dbtype</name>
            <value>Oracle</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>host</name>
            <value>oracle.example.org</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>port</name>
            <value>1521</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>database</name>
            <value>demodb</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>user</name>
            <value>orauser</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>passwd</name>
            <value>s3cr3t</value>
        </Parameter>
    </parameters>
</DataStore>

Note

You must install the Oracle plugin to connect to Oracle Spatial databases.

Shapefile

Shapefile data sources are identified by the presence of a parameter url, whose value should be the file URL for the .shp file.

In this example, only the url parameter is required. The others are optional:

<DataStore>
    <id>shapefile</id>
    <parameters>
        <Parameter>
            <name>url</name>
            <value>file:/D:/Workspace/shapefiles/VerdeRiverBuffer.shp</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>memory mapped buffer</name>
            <value>false</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>create spatial index</name>
            <value>true</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>charset</name>
            <value>ISO-8859-1</value>
        </Parameter>
    </parameters>
</DataStore>

Note

The url in this case is an example of a Windows filesystem path translated to URL notation.

Note

Shapefile support is included in the main GeoServer bundle, so a separate plugin is not required.

Property file

Property files are configured by specifying a directory that is a file: URI.

  • If the directory starts with file:./ it is relative to the mapping file directory. (This is an invalid URI, but it works.)

For example, the following data store is used to access property files in the same directory as the mapping file:

<DataStore>
    <id>propertyfile</id>
    <parameters>
        <Parameter>
            <name>directory</name>
            <value>file:./</value>
        </Parameter>
    </parameters>
</DataStore>

A property file data store contains all the feature types stored in .properties files in the directory. For example, if the directory contained River.properties and station.properties, the data store would be able to serve them as the feature types River and station. Other file extensions are ignored.

Note

Property file support is included in the main GeoServer bundle, so a separate plugin is not required.

JNDI

Defining a JDBC data store with a jndiReferenceName allows you to use a connection pool provided by your servlet container. This allows detailed configuration of connection pool parameters and sharing of connections between data sources, and even between servlets.

To use a JNDI connection provider:

  1. Specify a dbtype parameter to to indicate the database type. These values are the same as for the non-JNDI examples above.

  2. Give the jndiReferenceName you set in your servlet container. Both the abbreviated form jdbc/oracle form, as in Tomcat, and the canonical form java:comp/env/jdbc/oracle are supported.

This example uses JNDI to obtain Oracle connections:

<DataStore>
    <id>datastore</id>
    <parameters>
        <Parameter>
            <name>dbtype</name>
            <value>Oracle</value>
        </Parameter>
        <Parameter>
            <name>jndiReferenceName</name>
            <value>jdbc/oracle</value>
        </Parameter>
    </parameters>
</DataStore>

Your servlet container my require you to add a resource-ref section at the end of your geoserver/WEB-INF/web.xml. (Tomcat requires this, Jetty does not.) For example:

<resource-ref>
    <description>Oracle Spatial Datasource</description>
    <res-ref-name>jdbc/oracle</res-ref-name>
    <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
    <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

Here is an example of a Tomcat 6 context in /etc/tomcat6/server.xml that includes an Oracle connection pool:

<Context
    path="/geoserver"
    docBase="/usr/local/geoserver"
    crossContext="false"
    reloadable="false">
    <Resource
        name="jdbc/oracle"
        auth="Container"
        type="javax.sql.DataSource"
        url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@YOUR_DATABASE_HOSTNAME:1521:YOUR_DATABASE_NAME"
        driverClassName="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"
        username="YOUR_DATABASE_USERNAME"
        password="YOUR_DATABASE_PASSWORD"
        maxActive="20"
        maxIdle="10"
        minIdle="0"
        maxWait="10000"
        minEvictableIdleTimeMillis="300000"
        timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis="300000"
        numTestsPerEvictionRun="20"
        poolPreparedStatements="true"
        maxOpenPreparedStatements="100"
        testOnBorrow="true"
        validationQuery="SELECT SYSDATE FROM DUAL" />
</Context>

Firewall timeouts can silently sever idle connections to the database and cause GeoServer to hang. If there is a firewall between GeoServer and the database, a connection pool configured to shut down idle connections before the firewall can drop them will prevent GeoServer from hanging. This JNDI connection pool is configured to shut down idle connections after 5 to 10 minutes.

See also Setting up a JNDI connection pool with Tomcat.

Expose primary keys

By default, GeoServer conceals the existence of database columns with a primary key. To make such columns available for use in app-schema mapping files, set the data store parameter Expose primary keys to true:

<Parameter>
    <name>Expose primary keys</name>
   <value>true</value>
</Parameter>

This is known to work with PostGIS, Oracle, and JNDI data stores.

MongoDB

The data store configuration for a MongoDB data base will look like this:

<sourceDataStores>
    <DataStore>
        <id>data_source</id>
        <parameters>
            <Parameter>
                <name>data_store</name>
                <value>MONGO_DB_URL</value>
            </Parameter>
            <Parameter>
                <name>namespace</name>
                <value>NAME_SPACE</value>
            </Parameter>
            <Parameter>
                <name>schema_store</name>
                <value>SCHEMA_STORE</value>
            </Parameter>
            <Parameter>
                <name>data_store_type</name>
                <value>complex</value>
            </Parameter>
        </parameters>
    </DataStore>
</sourceDataStores>

Check MongoDB Tutorial for a more detailed description about how to use MongoDB with app-schema.

Note

You must install the MongoDB plugin to connect to MongoDB databases.

Previous: Property Interpolation
Next: Feature Chaining