Enterprise Linux GIS

The ELGIS repository is not maintained any more, use EPEL.
Enterprise Linux (EL) and derivatives (that is, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Scientific Linux) is a popular and robust platform for servers and computing-heavy workstations, and is therefore a good fit for GIS specific requirements.
The goal of the Enterprise Linux GIS (ELGIS) effort is to ensure that the latest stable versions of the main free GIS software run on the Enterprise Linux platform.
The mailing list el@lists.osgeo.org is used for communication (archive). Subscribers to the mailing-list are basically the community around ELGIS and are meant to be consulted for important choices (like which packages to support).
Open issues are listed here. Please have a look at this list before asking the mailing-list for support on a particular problem.
There is also a low-traffic Twitter account, mainly used for announcements. 
= Useful RPM repositories for GIS software =
* ELGIS repositories try to ensure that the latest stable versions of the major FLOSS GIS software are available for Enterprise Linux. They maintain versions of packages which cannot be maintained in EPEL, or that EPEL does not want to keep at the latest stable version. This is where our packaging effort currently takes place, and can be seen as a kind of backport repository.
ELGIS requires EPEL to be configured as an additional repository.
* EPEL is an official Fedora project which repackages many Fedora packages which are not part of the standard EL distribution. It contains quite a few GIS packages and base libraries. Note that one of the rules of the packages maintained in EPEL is that they should never require to change the base EL distribution. Moreover they rather follow Enterprise Linux policy of not using the latest version of the software but rather to stick with a given version in order to ensure stability and predictability.
* PGRPMS provides the latest versions of PostgreSQL (e.g. the 9.x versions not available in Enterprise Linux) as well as an up to date PostGIS. This is an option if you just want to run PostGIS and needs recent PostgreSQL features as well. 
PGRPMS is NOT compatible with ELGIS, don't enable both or you will break your environment.
= RHEL / CentOS / Scientific Linux 6 =
== How to enable the ELGIS6 repository ==
* (RHEL users: enable the 'optional' repository as it is required by EPEL)
* enable the EPEL repository (see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#howtouse)
* execute
 sudo rpm -Uvh http://elgis.argeo.org/repos/6/elgis-release-6-6_0.noarch.rpm
As of November 28th 2011, ELGIS Stable contains only the 64 bits binaries. For 32 bits, you will have to enable ELGIS Testing.
== Packages matrix ==
ELGIS 6 packages are built with the latest version of CentOS 6.
Note: there are currently only x86_64 packages in ELGIS Testing
Package 	Version (stable)	Version (testing)	Repository	Comment
gdal 	1.9.2 	 	elgis 	
geos 	3.3.8 	 	elgis 	
gpsbabel 	1.4.4 	 	elgis 	
grass 	6.4.2 	 	elgis 	
libspatialite	2.4.0 RC4 	 	epel 	
mapserver5 	5.6.7 	 	elgis 	
mapserver 	6.0.3 	 	elgis 	
osm2pgrouting	0.2 	 	elgis 	only for x86_64 currently
pgrouting 	1.05 	 	elgis 	
postgis 	1.5.8 	 	elgis 	
proj 	4.8.0 	 	elgis 	
qgis 	1.8.0 	 	elgis 	
tinyows 	0.9.0 	 	elgis 	
== Formats supported by GDAL ==
As of gdal-1.9.2-4
$ gdalinfo --formats
Supported Formats:
 VRT (rw+v): Virtual Raster
 GTiff (rw+v): GeoTIFF
 NITF (rw+v): National Imagery Transmission Format
 RPFTOC (rov): Raster Product Format TOC format
 ECRGTOC (rov): ECRG TOC format
 HFA (rw+v): Erdas Imagine Images (.img)
 SAR_CEOS (rov): CEOS SAR Image
 CEOS (rov): CEOS Image
 JAXAPALSAR (rov): JAXA PALSAR Product Reader (Level 1.1/1.5)
 GFF (rov): Ground-based SAR Applications Testbed File Format (.gff)
 ELAS (rw+v): ELAS
 AIG (rov): Arc/Info Binary Grid
 AAIGrid (rwv): Arc/Info ASCII Grid
 GRASSASCIIGrid (rov): GRASS ASCII Grid
 SDTS (rov): SDTS Raster
 DTED (rwv): DTED Elevation Raster
 PNG (rwv): Portable Network Graphics
 GTA (rwv): Generic Tagged Arrays (.gta)
 JPEG (rwv): JPEG JFIF
 MEM (rw+): In Memory Raster
 JDEM (rov): Japanese DEM (.mem)
 GIF (rwv): Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
 BIGGIF (rov): Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
 ESAT (ro): Envisat Image Format
 FITS (rw+): Flexible Image Transport System
 XPM (rwv): X11 PixMap Format
 BMP (rw+v): MS Windows Device Independent Bitmap
 DIMAP (rov): SPOT DIMAP
 AirSAR (ro): AirSAR Polarimetric Image
 RS2 (ro): RadarSat 2 XML Product
 PCIDSK (rw+v): PCIDSK Database File
 PCRaster (rw): PCRaster Raster File
 ILWIS (rw+v): ILWIS Raster Map
 SGI (rw+): SGI Image File Format 1.0
 SRTMHGT (rwv): SRTMHGT File Format
 Leveller (rw+): Leveller heightfield
 Terragen (rw+): Terragen heightfield
 GMT (rw): GMT NetCDF Grid Format
 netCDF (rw+): Network Common Data Format
 HDF4 (ro): Hierarchical Data Format Release 4
 HDF4Image (rw+): HDF4 Dataset
 ISIS3 (rov): USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 3)
 ISIS2 (rw+v): USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 2)
 PDS (rov): NASA Planetary Data System
 TIL (rov): EarthWatch .TIL
 ERS (rw+v): ERMapper .ers Labelled
 JPEG2000 (rwv): JPEG-2000 part 1 (ISO/IEC 15444-1)
 L1B (rov): NOAA Polar Orbiter Level 1b Data Set
 FIT (rwv): FIT Image
 GRIB (rov): GRIdded Binary (.grb)
 RMF (rw+v): Raster Matrix Format
 WCS (rov): OGC Web Coverage Service
 WMS (rwv): OGC Web Map Service
 MSGN (ro): EUMETSAT Archive native (.nat)
 RST (rw+v): Idrisi Raster A.1
 INGR (rw+v): Intergraph Raster
 GSAG (rwv): Golden Software ASCII Grid (.grd)
 GSBG (rw+v): Golden Software Binary Grid (.grd)
 GS7BG (rov): Golden Software 7 Binary Grid (.grd)
 COSAR (ro): COSAR Annotated Binary Matrix (TerraSAR-X)
 TSX (rov): TerraSAR-X Product
 COASP (ro): DRDC COASP SAR Processor Raster
 R (rwv): R Object Data Store
 PNM (rw+v): Portable Pixmap Format (netpbm)
 DOQ1 (rov): USGS DOQ (Old Style)
 DOQ2 (rov): USGS DOQ (New Style)
 ENVI (rw+v): ENVI .hdr Labelled
 EHdr (rw+v): ESRI .hdr Labelled
 GenBin (rov): Generic Binary (.hdr Labelled)
 PAux (rw+): PCI .aux Labelled
 MFF (rw+): Vexcel MFF Raster
 MFF2 (rw+): Vexcel MFF2 (HKV) Raster
 FujiBAS (ro): Fuji BAS Scanner Image
 GSC (rov): GSC Geogrid
 FAST (rov): EOSAT FAST Format
 BT (rw+v): VTP .bt (Binary Terrain) 1.3 Format
 LAN (rw+v): Erdas .LAN/.GIS
 CPG (ro): Convair PolGASP
 IDA (rw+): Image Data and Analysis
 NDF (rov): NLAPS Data Format
 EIR (rov): Erdas Imagine Raw
 DIPEx (rov): DIPEx
 LCP (rov): FARSITE v.4 Landscape File (.lcp)
 GTX (rw+v): NOAA Vertical Datum .GTX
 LOSLAS (rov): NADCON .los/.las Datum Grid Shift
 NTv2 (rw+v): NTv2 Datum Grid Shift
 ACE2 (rov): ACE2
 SNODAS (rov): Snow Data Assimilation System
 RIK (ro): Swedish Grid RIK (.rik)
 USGSDEM (rwv): USGS Optional ASCII DEM (and CDED)
 GXF (ro): GeoSoft Grid Exchange Format
 DODS (ro): DAP 3.x servers
 HTTP (ro): HTTP Fetching Wrapper
 BAG (ro): Bathymetry Attributed Grid
 HDF5 (ro): Hierarchical Data Format Release 5
 HDF5Image (ro): HDF5 Dataset
 NWT_GRD (rov): Northwood Numeric Grid Format .grd/.tab
 NWT_GRC (rov): Northwood Classified Grid Format .grc/.tab
 ADRG (rw+v): ARC Digitized Raster Graphics
 SRP (rov): Standard Raster Product (ASRP/USRP)
 BLX (rw): Magellan topo (.blx)
 Rasterlite (rw): Rasterlite
 PostGISRaster (ro): PostGIS Raster driver
 SAGA (rw+v): SAGA GIS Binary Grid (.sdat)
 KMLSUPEROVERLAY (rwv): Kml Super Overlay
 XYZ (rwv): ASCII Gridded XYZ
 HF2 (rwv): HF2/HFZ heightfield raster
 PDF (rov): Geospatial PDF
 JPEGLS (rwv): JPEGLS
 OZI (rov): OziExplorer Image File
 CTG (rov): USGS LULC Composite Theme Grid
 E00GRID (rov): Arc/Info Export E00 GRID
 ZMap (rwv): ZMap Plus Grid
 NGSGEOID (rov): NOAA NGS Geoid Height Grids
= RHEL / CentOS / Scientific Linux 5 =
Detailed package lists for ELGIS are available here: http://elgis.argeo.org 
== How to enable the ELGIS5 repository ==
* enable the EPEL repository (see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#howtouse)
* execute
 sudo rpm -Uvh http://elgis.argeo.org/repos/5/elgis-release-5-5_0.noarch.rpm
If you want to install QGIS, edit the /etc/yum.repos.d/elgis.repo file and enable the 'elgis-plus' repository. WARNING: elgis-plus updates the base distribution (qt4, sqlite) and may thus void your RHEL support
== Packages matrix ==
ELGIS 5 packages are built with the latest version of CentOS 5.
Package 	Version (stable)	Version (testing)	Repository	Comment
gdal 	1.8.0 	 	elgis 	built against postgresql84
geos 	3.2.2 	 	elgis 	
gpsbabel 	1.3.3 	 	epel 	
grass 	6.4.1 	 	elgis 	no NVIZ / digitizer in -wxpython UI (not yet completed in upstream, use -tcltk UI; scheduled for 6.4.2)
libspatialite	2.4.0 RC4 	 	elgis 	built with --disable-geocallbacks option in order to support base sqlite
KNOWN ISSUE: actually required to enable the recent sqlite version in elgis-plus in order to have libspatialite support (e.g. in GDAL)
mapnik 	 	0.7.1 	elgis-plus	requires to update the boost library
mapserver 	5.6.7 	 	elgis 	xml map files, php-mapserver-proj, transparent PNG, FriBidi, main executable in /usr/libexec
mapserver6 	6.0.1 	 	elgis 	main executable in /usr/libexec
mod_geocache 	 	0.3.1 	elgis 	
osm2pgrouting	0.2 	 	elgis 	built against postgresql84
osm2pgsql 	0.1.20100821svn 	 	elgis 	built against postgresql84
pgrouting 	1.05 	 	elgis 	built against postgresql84, with TSP support
postgis 	1.5.3 	 	elgis 	built against postgresql84
proj 	4.7.0 	 	elgis 	
qgis 	1.6.0 	 	elgis-plus	based on EPEL's python26, requires to update qt4
tinyows 	 	0.9.0 	elgis 	
== Formats supported by GDAL ==
As of gdal-1.8.0-4:
 LIBZ support: external
 LIBLZMA support: no
 GRASS support: no
 CFITSIO support: external
 PCRaster support: internal
 NetCDF support: yes
 LIBPNG support: external
 LIBTIFF support: external (BigTIFF=no)
 LIBGEOTIFF support: external
 LIBJPEG support: external
 8/12 bit JPEG TIFF: no
 LIBGIF support: external
 OGDI support: yes
 HDF4 support: yes
 HDF5 support: yes
 Kakadu support: no
 JasPer support: yes (GeoJP2=no)
 OpenJPEG support: no
 ECW support: no
 MrSID support: no
 MrSID/MG4 Lidar support: no
 MSG support: no
 GRIB support: yes
 EPSILON support: no
 cURL support (wms/wcs/...):yes
 PostgreSQL support: yes
 MySQL support: yes
 Ingres support: no
 Xerces-C support: yes
 NAS support: yes
 Expat support: yes
 Google libkml support: no 
 ODBC support: yes
 PGeo support: yes 
 PCIDSK support: internal
 OCI support: no
 GEORASTER support: no
 SDE support: no
 Rasdaman support: no
 DODS support: yes
 SQLite support: yes
 SpatiaLite support: yes
 DWGdirect support no
 INFORMIX DataBlade support:no
 GEOS support: yes
 VFK support: yes
 Poppler support: no
 OpenCL support: no
./configure --build=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --target=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --program-prefix= --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin --sysconfdir=/etc --datadir=/usr/share --includedir=/usr/include --libdir=/usr/lib64 --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var --sharedstatedir=/usr/com --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --prefix=/usr --includedir=/usr/include/gdal/ --datadir=/usr/share/gdal/ --with-threads=yes --with-dods-root=/usr/lib64 --with-ogdi --with-cfitsio=/usr --with-geotiff=external --with-tiff=external --with-libtiff=external --with-libz --with-netcdf --with-hdf4 --with-hdf5 --with-geos --with-jasper --with-png --with-gif --with-jpeg --with-odbc --with-sqlite --with-mysql --with-curl --with-python --with-perl --with-pcraster --with-ruby --with-java --with-xerces --with-xerces-lib=-lxerces-c --with-xerces-inc=/usr/include --with-jpeg12=no --enable-shared --with-gdal-ver=1.8.0 --with-spatialite=yes
= If you want to contribute packages to the ELGIS repo =
* Especially for new packages, please try to build them in mock first (the one from CentOS, not from EPEL!), so that all build dependencies are in the spec file. You can find some mock config files here. Don't hesitate to ask on the mailing-list if you need support for your first mock builds: this is much easier than it seems, and very clean
* For existing packages, please always start from the spec files maintained in subversion, so that previous changes are integrated: https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/trunk/rpmbuild/elgis/ <package>/SPECS/*.spec (or https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/trunk/rpmbuild/elgis-plus/ ...)
Then send you spec file to the mailing-list or give download access to an SRPM.
= Note about Fedora, ELGIS and EPEL =
* in general, Fedora packages are the upstream source for Enterprise Linux packages (be they in the EPEL or ELGIS repos)
* ELGIS depends on EPEL, complements it and sometimes overrides it
* ELGIS mission is to provide the latest stable version of the main Free GIS packages, whereas EPEL has a policy of keeping versions stable across an upstream release lifecycle 
* packages that cannot be in EPEL (typically because they require to update the base platform) can be maintained in the ELGIS Plus repo (it is expected that there will be very few of them at the beginning of the EL6 life cycle)
* our goal is not primarily to provide packages but also to serve as a knowledge base for FLOSS GIS software usage on Enterprise Linux. Therefore EL specific questions related to GIS packages from EPEL are welcome on the ELGIS list, and information about them will be documented in the other resources provided by the OSGeo foundation (wiki, trac, etc.)
= How To =
== How to hack and locally build the ELGIS packages ==
ELGIS6 packages are now maintained in Git repositories which are forks from Fedora/EPEL Git repositories:
http://elgis.argeo.org/gitweb/
In order to build a package (here: geos):
* Use the mock file below
* Clone the repository you are interested in to a local directory (here: ~/dev/git/elgis.argeo.org)
 git clone -b elgis6 git://elgis.argeo.org/geos.git
* Download the sources to a local directory (here: ~/dev/git/elgis.argeo.org/sources)
* Run mock:
 mock --scm-enable -r elgis-6-testing-x86_64 --scm-option package=geos -v
=== Mock Config File ===
To be put in : /etc/mock/elgis-6-testing-x86_64.cfg
 # SCM
 config_opts['scm'] = False
 config_opts['scm_opts']['method'] = 'git'
 #config_opts['scm_opts']['git_get'] = 'git clone -b elgis6 git://elgis.argeo.org/SCM_PKG.git SCM_PKG'
 config_opts['scm_opts']['git_get'] = 'git clone -b elgis6 /home/mbaudier/dev/git/elgis.argeo.org/SCM_PKG SCM_PKG'
 config_opts['scm_opts']['spec'] = 'SCM_PKG.spec'
 config_opts['scm_opts']['ext_src_dir'] = '/home/mbaudier/dev/git/elgis.argeo.org/sources'
 config_opts['scm_opts']['git_timestamps'] = True
 
 # BUILD
 config_opts['root'] = 'elgis-6-testing-x86_64'
 config_opts['target_arch'] = 'x86_64'
 config_opts['legal_host_arches'] = ('x86_64',)
 config_opts['chroot_setup_cmd'] = 'groupinstall buildsys-build'
 config_opts['dist'] = 'el6' # only useful for --resultdir variable subst
 
 config_opts['yum.conf'] = """
 [main]
 cachedir=/var/cache/yum
 debuglevel=1
 reposdir=/dev/null
 logfile=/var/log/yum.log
 retries=20
 obsoletes=1
 gpgcheck=0
 assumeyes=1
 syslog_ident=mock
 syslog_device=
 
 # repos
 [base]
 name=BaseOS
 enabled=1
 mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=6&arch=x86_64&repo=os
 gpgcheck=1
 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6
 failovermethod=priority
 
 [updates]
 name=updates
 enabled=0
 mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=updates
 gpgcheck=1
 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6
 failovermethod=priority
 
 [epel]
 name=epel
 #mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=epel-6&arch=x86_64
 baseurl=http://localrepo/yumrepos/epel/6/x86_64
 failovermethod=priority
 
 [elgis]
 name=ELGIS 6
 baseurl=http://elgis.argeo.org/repos/6/elgis/x86_64/
 
 [elgis-testing]
 name=ELGIS 6 Testing
 baseurl=http://elgis.argeo.org/repos/testing/6/elgis/x86_64/
 
 [elgis-staging]
 name=ELGIS 6 Staging
 baseurl=file:///srv/rpmfactory/elgis-staging/6/x86_64/
 gpgcheck=0
 
 """
== How to hack and locally build the ELGIS packages (old) ==
For the time being, the ELGIS packages (that is, those not maintained by EPEL) are versioned by and distributed through argeo.org.
You can see the currently versioned packages here:
* Testing
** ELGIS : https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/trunk/rpmbuild/elgis
** ELGIS Plus: https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/trunk/rpmbuild/elgis-plus 
* Stable
** ELGIS: https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/branches/5-stable/rpmbuild/elgis
** ELGIS Plus: https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/branches/5-stable/rpmbuild/elgis-plus
Note: simply accept the self-signed certificate
You can checkout all the packages:
 svn co https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/trunk/rpmbuild rpms
Or one by one, for example:
 svn co https://projects.argeo.org/elgis/svn/factory/trunk/rpmbuild/elgis/gdal gdal
Each package directory follows the directory structure expected by rpmbuild (see how to set an rpmbuild environment).
We version only the spec files (under <package name>/SPECS/<package name>.spec) and the patches or some light sources (under <package name>/SOURCES). The source packages of the underlying libraries needs to be downloaded in the SOURCES directory.
Please send patches to the spec files to the el@lists.osgeo.org mailing-list.
In order to actually build, you can then configure %_topdir in your ~/.rpmmacros file to point to where you checked out a package, for example:
 %_topdir %(echo $HOME)/dev/rpmbuild
 %rhel 5
 %packager Mathieu Baudier <mbaudier@argeo.org>
 %dist .el5.elgis
A more persistent alternative is to have the two following files in each package directory:
* <package directory>/rpmrc
 include: /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc
 macrofiles: /usr/lib/rpm/macros:/usr/lib/rpm/ia32e-linux/macros:/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/macros:/etc/rpm/macros.*:/etc/rpm/macros:/etc/rpm/ia32e-linux/macros:~/.rpmmacros:<package directory>/rpmmacros
(note the ':<package directory>/rpmmacros' appended at the end of the macrofiles line)
* <package directory>/rpmmacros
 %_topdir <package directory>
 %rhel 5
 %packager Mathieu Baudier <mbaudier@argeo.org>
 %dist .el5.argeo
And then call rpmbuild as follow
 cd <package directory>
 rpmbuild --rcfile=rpmrc -ba SPECS/<package name>.spec
These two files are registered in svn:ignore and can typically be automatically generated by scripts or a build framework.
== How to deploy GeoServer 2.1 (standard packages not using the ELGIS repository) ==
This how-to goes through the various steps required to have GeoServer 2.1 running as a Java web application inside the standard Tomcat 5 container. It has been tested with CentOS 5.6 x86_64.
=== Basic install (with base OpenJdk) ===
* Install the required packages
 sudo yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel tomcat5
* (optional) Install tomcat-native frop EPEL
 sudo yum install tomcat-native
* Download GeoServer
 cd ~/Downloads
 wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/geoserver/files/GeoServer/2.1.1/geoserver-2.1.1-war.zip/download?use_mirror=ignum
* (optional) Backup previous deployment
 # Stop Tomcat
 sudo /sbin/service tomcat5 stop
 # Backup previous data dir
 sudo tar -czf /srv/backups/geoserver/geoserver-data-110624.tar.gz /var/lib/geoserver/data
 # Backup up previous install
 sudo mv /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/geoserver* /srv/backups/geoserver/2.0.2/
* Unpack to Tomcat webapps
 cd /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/
 sudo unzip ~/Downloads/geoserver-2.1.1-war.zip geoserver.war
* (new installs only) Create a separate data directory
 sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/geoserver
 cd /var/lib/geoserver
 sudo jar -xvf /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/geoserver.war data
 sudo chown -R tomcat.tomcat /var/lib/geoserver
* Update /etc/tomcat/tomcat5.conf to add the recommended Java settings and to point to the data directory. You can increase/decrease the maximum memory allocated to Java with the -Xmx flag (-Xms is the initial allocation):
 # Geoserver recommended
 # http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/production/container.html
 JAVA_OPTS="-showversion -server -Xmx512m -Xms64m -XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=36000 -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -XX:+UseParallelGC"
 JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -DGEOSERVER_DATA_DIR=/var/lib/geoserver/data"
* (optional ?) Update web.xml to take the data directory (seems to work with only the system property specified)
...
 <context-param>
 <param-name>GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR</param-name>
 <param-value>/var/lib/geoserver/data</param-value>
 </context-param> 
...
* Add an AJP proxy in the Apache configuration (e.g. in /etc/httpd/conf.d/geoserver.conf)
 <Location /geoserver/>
 	ProxyPass ajp://localhost:8009/geoserver/
 	# Uncomment to forbid non ssl access
 	#RequireSSL
 </Location>
* (optional) If using SELinux, allow the proxying by setting the appropriate boolean
 setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect=1
* Start Tomcat
 sudo /sbin/service tomcat5 start
* (optional) You can tail Tomcat logs to make sure that it is starting properly
 tail -500f /var/log/tomcat5/catalina.out
* Restart Apache
 sudo /sbin/service httpd restart
* Visit http://yourhost.org/geoserver/
* Log in as admin (default password is 'geoserver')
=== Update GeoServer to a new minor release ===
 cd /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps
 sudo unzip ~/Downloads/geoserver-2.1.3-war.zip geoserver.war
 sudo mv geoserver geoserver-2.1.1
 sudo -u tomcat mkdir geoserver
 cd geoserver
 sudo -u tomcat jar -xvf ../geoserver.war
 sudo -u tomcat cp -v ../geoserver-2.1.1/WEB-INF/{applicationSecurityContext.xml,web.xml} WEB-INF/
 # (optional) Spring LDAP
 sudo -u tomcat cp -v ../geoserver-2.1.1/WEB-INF/lib/spring-ldap-1.3.1.RELEASE-all.jar WEB-INF/lib
 sudo /sbin/service tomcat5 start
There may be some stacktraces when restarting: "IOException while loading persisted sessions: java.io.InvalidClassException". Don't worry about them, just refresh your browser windows.
=== With Sun/Oracle JRE and JAI native (recommended by GeoServer) ===
GeoServer documentation recommends to use a Sun/Oracle JRE with the JAI and JAI-ImageIO native extensions. There was an obvious performaince gain inthe tile generation by doing so
* Download in install Sun/Oracle JDK in /opt (a JRE should be enough)
* Hack the /usr/bin/dtomcat5 script to add an explicit reference to Sun/Oracle JDK at the beginning (did not find any better way neither through /etc/tomcat5/tomcat5.conf nor /etc/init.d/tomcat5 nor the alternatives system, ideas welcome...)
 ...
 JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.6.0_21
 ...
* Go into the Sun JDK directory:
 cd /opt/jdk1.6.0_21
* Download and install JAI from http://download.java.net/media/jai/builds/release/1_1_3
 sudo sh ~/Downloads/jai-1_1_3-lib-linux-amd64-jdk.bin
* Download JAI-ImageIO from http://download.java.net/media/jai-imageio/builds/release/1.1 
* Note: On x86_64 the archive of JAI-ImageIO to download as of 1.1 is corrupted, fix it with the command below and run the fixed archive (thanks to http://jgrasstechtips.blogspot.com/2009/07/jai-tail-cannot-open-215-for-reading-no.html for the tip)
 sed s/+215/-n+215/ jai_imageio-1_1-lib-linux-amd64-jdk.bin > jai_imageio-1_1-lib-linux-amd64-jdk-fixed.bin
* Install JAI-ImageIO
 sudo sh ~/Downloads/jai_imageio-1_1-lib-linux-amd64-jdk-fixed.bin
* Restart Tomcat
 sudo /sbin/service tomcat5 restart
* Visit your GeoServer status page in order to make sure that native JAI is taken into account
=== LDAP Authentication ===
This will allow you to have you user referential in LDAP (tested with base CentOS 5 openldap-servers).
Your users need to be inetOrgPerson under ou=People,dc=my_org,dc=org
Your GeoServer administrators need to belong to the cn=administrator,ou=Roles,dc=my_org,dc=org role:
 dn: cn=administrator,ou=Roles,dc=my_org,dc=org
 objectClass: top
 objectClass: groupOfNames
 cn: administrator
 member: uid=mbaudier,ou=People,dc=my_org,dc=org
Other roles can be defined similarly under ou=Roles,dc=argeo,dc=org, and should be added mnaually when defining rules in GeoServer. You can of course adapt the following configuration with your specific LDAP settings.
Caveats:
* the list of users won't be properly displayed in GeoServer.
* as usual with autentication via HTTP make sure that users are using SSL (https://) when they authenticate, otherwise their credentials will be sent in clear. If you want to mix public with private data and stay compatible with client which don't support HTTPS, this is not necessarily easy.
Procedure:
* Download spring-ldap and copy it to the WEB-INF/lib directory of GeoServer:
 cd /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/lib
 sudo wget http://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=org/springframework/ldap/spring-ldap/1.3.1.RELEASE/spring-ldap-1.3.1.RELEASE-all.jar -O spring-ldap-1.3.1.RELEASE-all.jar
* Extract applicationContextSecurity.xml from the main-jar (in /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/lib/)
* Copy it to /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/
* Add the following at the beginning of the applicationContextSecurity.xml file (after the <beans> tag)
 <beans>
	<!-- CUSTOM : LDAP config -->
	<bean id="contextSource" class="org.springframework.security.ldap.DefaultSpringSecurityContextSource">
		<constructor-arg value="ldap://my_ldap_server:389/dc=my_org,dc=org" />
		<!--<property name="managerDn" value="mydomain\myuser" /> <property name="managerPassword" 
			value="mypasswd" /> -->
	</bean>
	<bean id="userSearch" class="org.springframework.security.ldap.search.FilterBasedLdapUserSearch">
		<constructor-arg index="0">
			<value>ou=People</value>
		</constructor-arg>
		<constructor-arg index="1">
			<value>(uid={0})</value>
		</constructor-arg>
		<constructor-arg index="2">
			<ref local="contextSource" />
		</constructor-arg>
		<property name="searchSubtree">
			<value>false</value>
		</property>
	</bean>
	<bean id="ldapAuthenticationProvider"
		class="org.springframework.security.providers.ldap.LdapAuthenticationProvider">
		<constructor-arg>
			<bean
				class="org.springframework.security.providers.ldap.authenticator.BindAuthenticator">
				<constructor-arg ref="contextSource"/>
				<property name="userSearch">
					<ref local="userSearch" />
				</property>
			</bean>
		</constructor-arg>
		<constructor-arg>
			<bean
				class="org.springframework.security.ldap.populator.DefaultLdapAuthoritiesPopulator">
				<constructor-arg>
					<ref local="contextSource" />
				</constructor-arg>
				<constructor-arg>
					<value>ou=Roles</value>
				</constructor-arg>
				<property name="groupRoleAttribute">
					<value>cn</value>
				</property>
				<property name="rolePrefix">
					<value>ROLE_</value>
				</property>
				<property name="convertToUpperCase">
					<value>true</value>
				</property>
			</bean>
		</constructor-arg>
	</bean>
	<!-- END OF CUSTOM LDAP CONFIGURATION -->
 <bean id="filterChainProxy"
 class="org.springframework.security.util.FilterChainProxy">
 <property name="filterInvocationDefinitionSource">
 ...
* Modify the following section
 ...
 <bean id="authenticationManager"
 class="org.springframework.security.providers.ProviderManager">
 <property name="providers">
 <list>
		<ref local="ldapAuthenticationProvider" />
<!-- <ref local="daoAuthenticationProvider" /> -->
 ...
* Modify /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/web.xml to use WEB-INF/applicationSecurityContext.xml instead of classpath*:/applicationSecurityContext.xml
 ...
 <context-param>
 <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
 <param-value>classpath*:/applicationContext.xml WEB-INF/applicationSecurityContext.xml</param-value>
 </context-param>
 ...
* Restart Tomcat
 sudo /sbin/service tomcat5 restart
= Historical Reference =
* September 2011 - Introduction of ELGIS 6: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/el/2011-September/000670.html
* December 2010 - Collaboration with Fedora and EPEL: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/el/2010-December/000338.html
* August 2010 - Announcement of the ELGIS repositories: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/el/2010-August/000018.html
* May/June 2010 - Original mails suggesting to coordinate EL GIS through OSGeo and describing the rationale and the approach
** On the Live GIS CD mailing-list: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/live-demo/2010-May/001724.html
** On the Discuss mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2010-June/007231.html
Note: the ELGIS logo is freely reusable as described here