GeoServer Install¶

In this section, we are going to install the Apache Tomcat 9 Servlet Java container, which will be started by default on the internal port 8080.

We will also perform several optimizations to:

Correctly setup the Java VM Options, like the available heap memory and the garbage collector options.
Externalize the GeoServer and GeoWebcache catalogs in order to allow further updates without the risk of deleting our datasets.

Note

This is still a basic setup of those components. More details will be provided on sections of the documentation concerning the hardening of the system in a production environment. Nevertheless, you will need to tweak a bit those settings accordingly with your current system. As an instance, if your machine does not have enough memory, you will need to lower down the initial amount of available heap memory. Warnings and notes will be placed below the statements that will require your attention.

Install Apache Tomcat 9 (ref. https://yallalabs.com/linux/ubuntu/how-to-install-apache-tomcat-9-ubuntu-20-04/)

Warning

Apache Tomcat 9 requires Java 8 or newer to be installed on the server. Check the steps before in order to be sure you have OpenJDK 8 correctly installed on your system.

Let’s install Tomcat and edit the default startup script.

sudo apt install tomcat9 -y
sudo systemctl edit tomcat9

Edit the startup script with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Apache Tomcat Server
After=syslog.target network.target
RequiresMountsFor=/var/log/geoserver /opt/data/geoserver_data /opt/data/geoserver_cache

[Service]

# Configuration
Environment="JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/"
Environment="GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR=/opt/data/geoserver_data"
Environment="GEOSERVER_LOG_LOCATION=/var/log/geoserver/geoserver.log"
Environment="GEOWEBCACHE_CACHE_DIR=/opt/data/geoserver_cache"
Environment="GEOFENCE_DIR=${GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR}/geofence"
Environment="TIMEZONE=UTC"
Environment="JAVA_OPTS='-server \
    -Djava.awt.headless=true \
    -Dorg.geotools.shapefile.datetime=false \
    -XX:+UseParallelGC \
    -XX:ParallelGCThreads=4 \
    -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 \
    -Duser.timezone=${TIMEZONE} \
    -Xms1024m \
    -Xmx2048m \
    -Djavax.servlet.request.encoding=UTF-8 \
    -Djavax.servlet.response.encoding=UTF-8 \
    -DGEOSERVER_CSRF_DISABLED=true \
    -DPRINT_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/geoserver/pdf \
    -DGEOSERVER_DATA_DIR=${GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR} \
    -DGEOSERVER_LOG_LOCATION=${GEOSERVER_LOG_LOCATION} \
    -Dgeofence.dir=${GEOFENCE_DIR} \
    -DGEOWEBCACHE_CACHE_DIR=${GEOWEBCACHE_CACHE_DIR}'"

# Security
ReadWritePaths=/opt/data/geoserver_data
ReadWritePaths=/var/log/geoserver
ReadWritePaths=/opt/data/geoserver_cache

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Create the Directory Structure and Install Needed Packages

## stop running tomcat for geoserver provisioning
systemctl stop tomcat9

## set geoserver version
export GS_VERSION=2.18.3

## make the geoserver directories
sudo mkdir -p /opt/data/geoserver_data
sudo mkdir -p /var/log/geoserver
sudo mkdir -p /opt/data/geoserver_cache

## set the directory permissions
sudo chmod 0755 /opt/data/geoserver_data
sudo chmod 2750 /var/log/geoserver
sudo chmod 0750 /opt/data/geoserver_cache

## install the data directory template
cd /opt/data/geoserver_data
sudo wget --no-check-certificate "https://artifacts.geonode.org/geoserver/2.18.x/geonode-geoserver-ext-web-app-data.zip" -O data-$GS_VERSION.zip
sudo unzip data-$GS_VERSION.zip

## set geoserver directory ownership
sudo chown -R tomcat:tomcat /opt/data/geoserver_data
sudo chown -R tomcat:adm /var/log/geoserver
sudo chown -R tomcat:tomcat /opt/data/geoserver_cache

## temporary placeholder for download war file
cd /opt && sudo mkdir -p geoserver && cd geoserver

## install geoserver war
sudo wget --no-check-certificate "https://artifacts.geonode.org/geoserver/2.18.x/geoserver.war" -O geoserver-$GS_VERSION.war
sudo mv geoserver-$GS_VERSION.war /var/lib/tomcat9/webapps/geoserver.war

## start Tomcat9
sudo systemctl start tomcat9