0 to 100 on AWS – Building a full stack web mapping application with PostGIS, GeoServer, OpenLayers and ReactJS
With GeoServer deployed in an autoscaling group and the database deployed and populated with ABS data, we can now add the service layer into the stack by publishing some OGC web services in Mapbox Vector Tile (MVT) format.
The GeoServer AMI has several plugins already installed, including the Vector Tiles core extension and the Mapbox Styles community module.
1. In the AWS console, select Services > EC2.
2. Under Load Balancers, select the load balancer that was deployed in the previous section (it should have a name like foss4-Geose-XXXXXXXXXXXXX), and under Description > Basic Configuration, find and copy the DNS name to the clipboard.
3. Open a new web browser window or tab, and go to the URL http://<Load Balancer DNS name>/geoserver/web
4. You should be presented with the GeoServer login page. Login to the GeoServer web admin interface with user admin and password geoserver. For this workshop, we'll just leave the password for the admin user at its default. You can change the password under Users, Groups, Roles > Users / Groups
5. First we'll add a workspace to organise the workshop GeoServer resources. Open the Data > Workspaces page and click on Add new workspace. Add a new workspace with name workshop and Namespace URI workshop and select the Default Workspace checkbox.
6. Now we'll add a store so that we can publish tables and views from PostGIS as services. Open the Stores page and click on Add new store.
7. When prompted to select the data source, select Vector Data Sources > PostGIS.
8. Create the store using the values in the table below. Note: to get the database host value, open the AWS console and locate the RDS instance you deployed earlier in the RDS > Instances and copy the Endpoint.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Workspace | workshop |
| Data Source Name | workshop-postgis |
| Description | FOSS4G Oceania Workshop PostGIS instance |
| host | <RDS_ENDPOINT> |
| port | 5432 |
| database | foss4g |
| schema | geoserver |
| user | workshop |
| password | <WORKSHOP_USER_PASSWORD> |
9. Leave the remaining parameters with default values and then press Save.
10. You should then be presented with the New Layer page, from which you can publish the tables/views in the geoserver schema as services.
11. First we'll publish the points layer. From the table, locate the abs_stats_point layer and click Publish.
12. The Edit Layer page should be displayed. Locate the Bounding Boxes section and for the Native Bounding Box click Compute from data. For the Lat/Lon Bounding Box click Compute from native bounds.
13. Leave the rest of the properties with the default values and click Save.
14. Now we'll publish the polygon layer. From the Layers page, click Add a new layer and select the workshop:workshop-postgis store. Follow the process outlined above to publish the abs_stats_poly layer.
15. The layers are now published and you can preview them in a variety of formats on the Data > Layer Preview page (i.e. click on OpenLayers to preview as a simple web map).
16. The final step is to enable the Mapbox Vector Tile format on the published layers. Open the Tile Caching > Tile Layers page.
17. Select the workshop:abs_stats_point layer from the table and then on the Edit Layer page, select the Tile Caching tab and activate the application/x-protobuf;type=mapbox-vector checkbox under the Tile Image Formats. Click Save.
18. Repeat the process to enable Mapbox Vector Tiles on the workshop:abs_stats_poly layer.
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