Build Your Own OpenStreetMap Tile Server on Ubuntu 16.04
OpenStreetMap, aka, OSM is a user contributed world map that is freely editable. This tutorial will show you how to build your own OpenStreetMap tile server on Ubuntu 16.04. 4GB RAM, 40GB disk space should be the minimum OpenStreetMap server requirements for displaying a small country map like UK. If your map is large, then consider adding more RAM and disk space. If you need to do this on a VPS, then I recommend Linode, from which you can get a 4GB VPS for only 20 USD per month. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Note: This tutorial is a bit outdated. Please see my updated tutorial here: How to set up OpenStreetMap tile server on Ubuntu 18.04.
Step 1: Upgrade Software
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Step 2: Install PostgreSQL Database Server with PostGIS
We will use PostgreSQL to store map data. PostGIS is a geospatial extenstion to PostgreSQL. Run the following commands to install them.
sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib postgis postgresql-9.5-postgis-2.2
The postgres user will be created on the OS during the installation process. It’s the super user for PostgreSQL database server. By default, this user has no password and there’s no need to set one because you can use sudo to switch to the postgres user:
sudo -u postgres -i
Now you can create a PostgreSQL database user osm.
createuser osm
Create a database named gis and at the same time make osm as the owner of the database. -E UTF8 specifies the character encoding scheme to be used in the database is UTF8.
createdb -E UTF8 -O osm gis
Create hstore and postgis extension on the gis database.
psql -c "CREATE EXTENSION hstore;" -d gis psql -c "CREATE EXTENSION postgis;" -d gis
Exit from the postgres user.
exit
Create osm user on your operating system so the tile server can run as osm user.
sudo adduser osm
Step 3: Download Map Stylesheet and Map Data
First switch to osm user
su - osm
Download the latest CartoCSS map stylesheets to the osm user’s home directory.
wget https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/archive/v2.41.0.tar.gz
Extract it.
tar xvf v2.41.0.tar.gz
Next, download map data to the osm user’s home directory. Use the below command to download the map data of the whole planet (32G).
wget -c http://planet.openstreetmap.org/pbf/planet-latest.osm.pbf
If you want a map of individual country or state, go to http://download.geofabrik.de. Also, BBBike.org provides extracts of more than 200 cities and regions world-wide in different formats.
For example, download the map data of Great Britain (847M).
wget -c http://download.geofabrik.de/europe/great-britain-latest.osm.pbf
Now exit from the osm user.
exit
Recommendations before Importing Map Data
Importing map data takes a lot of RAM. If your physical memory is small, you can easily add a swap file. First we use fallocate command to create a file. For example, create a file named swapfile with 2G capacity in root file system:
sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
Then make sure only root can read and write to it.
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
Format it to swap:
sudo mkswap /swapfile
Output:
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 2097148 KiB no label, UUID=h32b3e10-0779-4865-9ea0-6e2af8f3kea9
Enable the swap file
sudo swapon /swapfile
The import process can take some time. It’s recommended to configure SSH keepalive so that you don’t lose the SSH connection. It’s very easy to do. Just open the SSH client configuration file on your local Linux machine.
sudo nano /etc/ssh/ssh_config
And paste the following text at the end of the file.
ServerAliveInterval 60
Then save the file and connect to your Ubuntu 16.04 server
Step 4: Import the Map Data to PostgreSQL
To import map data, we need to install osm2pgsql which converts OpenStreetMap data to postGIS-enabled PostgreSQL databases.
sudo apt install osm2pgsql
Switch to osm user again.
su - osm
Run the following command to load map stylesheet and map data into the gis Database. Replace great-britain-latest.osm.pbf with your own map data file.
osm2pgsql --slim -d gis -C 3600 --hstore -S openstreetmap-carto-2.41.0/openstreetmap-carto.style great-britain-latest.osm.pbf
osm2gpsql will run in slim mode which is recommended over the normal mode. -d stands for --database. -C flag specify the cache size in MB. Bigger cache size results in faster import speed but you need to have enough RAM to use cache. -S flag specify the style file. And finally you need to specify the map data file.
Once the import is complete, exit from the osm user.
exit
Step 5: Install mod_tile
mod_tile is an Apache module that is required to serve tiles. Currently no binary package is available for Ubuntu. We can compile it from Github repository.
First install build dependency.
sudo apt install git autoconf libtool libmapnik-dev apache2-dev
Then clone the repository from Github.
git clone https://github.com/openstreetmap/mod_tile.git cd mod_tile/
Compile and install
./autogen.sh ./configure make sudo make install sudo make install-mod_tile
Step 6: Generate Mapnik Stylesheet
Install required packages.
sudo apt install curl unzip gdal-bin mapnik-utils node-carto
Switch to osm user.
su - osm
Cd into the carto style directory.
cd openstreetmap-carto-2.41.0/
Get shapefiles.
./get-shapefiles.sh
Now build the Mapnik xml stylesheet.
carto project.mml > style.xml
Exit from the osm user.
exit
Step 7: Configuring renderd
Edit renderd config file.
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/renderd.conf
In the [default] section, change the value of XML and HOST to the following.
XML=/home/osm/openstreetmap-carto-2.41.0/style.xml HOST=localhost
In [mapnik] section, change the value of plugins_dir.
plugins_dir=/usr/lib/mapnik/3.0/input/
Save the file.
Install renderd init script by copying the sample init script.
sudo cp mod_tile/debian/renderd.init /etc/init.d/renderd
Grant execute permission.
sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/renderd
Edit the init script file
sudo nano /etc/init.d/renderd
Change the following variable.
DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/$NAME DAEMON_ARGS="-c /usr/local/etc/renderd.conf" RUNASUSER=osm
Save the file.
Create the following file and set osm the owner.
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/mod_tile sudo chown osm:osm /var/lib/mod_tile
Then start renderd service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl start renderd sudo systemctl enable renderd
Step 8: Configure Apache
Install Apache web server
sudo apt install apache2
Create a module load file.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/mods-available/mod_tile.load
Paste the following line into the file.
LoadModule tile_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_tile.so
Create a symlink.
sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/mod_tile.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/
Then edit the default virtual host file.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf
Paste the following lines in <VirtualHost *:80>
LoadTileConfigFile /usr/local/etc/renderd.conf ModTileRenderdSocketName /var/run/renderd/renderd.sock # Timeout before giving up for a tile to be rendered ModTileRequestTimeout 0 # Timeout before giving up for a tile to be rendered that is otherwise missing ModTileMissingRequestTimeout 30
Save and close the file. Restart Apache.
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Then in your web browser address bar, type
your-server-ip/osm_tiles/0/0/0.png
You should see the tile of world map. Congrats! You just successfully built your own OSM tile server.
Display Your Tiled Web Map
Tiled web map is also known as slippy map in OpenStreetMap terminology. There are two free and open source JavaScript map libraries you can use for your tile server: OpenLayer and Leaflet. The advantage of Leaflet is that it is simple to use and your map will be mobile-friendly.
OpenLayer
To display your slippy map with OpenLayer, download JavaScript and CSS from openlayer.org and extract it to the web root folder.
cd /var/www/html sudo wget https://github.com/openlayers/openlayers/releases/download/v4.3.4/v4.3.4.zip sudo unzip v4.3.4.zip
Next, create the index.html file.
sudo nano /var/www/html/index.html
Paste the following HTML code in the file. Replace red-colored text and adjust the longitude, latitude and zoom level according to your needs.
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Accessible Map</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://your-ip/v4.3.4/css/ol.css" type="text/css"> <script src="http://your-ip/v4.3.4/build/ol.js"></script> <style> a.skiplink { position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); padding: 0; border: 0; height: 1px; width: 1px; overflow: hidden; } a.skiplink:focus { clip: auto; height: auto; width: auto; background-color: #fff; padding: 0.3em; } #map:focus { outline: #4A74A8 solid 0.15em; } </style> </head> <body> <a class="skiplink" href="#map">Go to map</a> <div id="map" class="map" tabindex="0"></div> <button id="zoom-out">Zoom out</button> <button id="zoom-in">Zoom in</button> <script> var map = new ol.Map({ layers: [ new ol.layer.Tile({ source: new ol.source.OSM({ url: 'http://your-ip/osm_tiles/{z}/{x}/{y}.png' }) }) ], target: 'map', controls: ol.control.defaults({ attributionOptions: /** @type {olx.control.AttributionOptions} */ ({ collapsible: false }) }), view: new ol.View({ center: [244780.24508882355, 7386452.183179816], zoom:5 }) }); document.getElementById('zoom-out').onclick = function() { var view = map.getView(); var zoom = view.getZoom(); view.setZoom(zoom - 1); }; document.getElementById('zoom-in').onclick = function() { var view = map.getView(); var zoom = view.getZoom(); view.setZoom(zoom + 1); }; </script> </body> </html>
Save and close the file. Now you can view your slippy map by typing your server IP address in browser.
your-ip/index.html or your-ip
Leaflet
To display your slippy map with Leftlet, download JavaScript and CSS from leftletjs.com and extract it to the web root folder.
cd /var/www/html/ sudo wget http://cdn.leafletjs.com/leaflet/v1.2.0/leaflet.zip sudo unzip leaflet.zip
Next, create the index.html file.
sudo nano /var/www/html/index.html
Paste the following HTML code in the file. Replace red-colored text and adjust the longitude, latitude and zoom level according to your needs.
<html>
<head>
<title>My first osm</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="leaflet.css"/>
<script type="text/javascript" src="leaflet.js"></script>
<style>
#map{width:100%;height:100%}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="map"></div>
<script>
var map = L.map('map').setView([53.555,9.899],5);
L.tileLayer('http://your-ip/osm_tiles/{z}/{x}/{y}.png',{maxZoom:18}).addTo(map);
</script>
</body>
</html>
Save and close the file. Now you can view your slippy map by typing your server IP address in browser.
your-ip/index.html or your-ip
To pre-render tiles instead of rendering on the fly, use render_list command. Pre-rendered tiles will be cached in /var/lib/mod_tile directory. -z and -Z flag specify the zoom level.
render_list -m default -a -z 0 -Z 10
This tutorial is made available with the help from Miles B. Dyson.
hello
Hi.
REALLY NICE WORK.
I have question regarding map updateing.
Can you add to tutorial steps and possible timeframe (your opinion) to update map files and then other necessary commands to make server up2date using cron ?
thanks,
Andy
hello mr guoan
i follow every step of your tutoriel but i have problem to display maps.
i download only a area of france:
http://download.geofabrik.de/e…
when i lauchn my browser
http://XXXXX/mod_tiles/18/131989/93435.png
( normally i have to see this tile because she’s in the package
download (limousin-140101.osm.pbf)
no maps but this text:
NoResp200: 0
NoResp304: 0
NoResp404: 0
NoResp503: 0
NoResp5XX: 0
NoRespOther: 0
NoFreshCache: 0
i have results with i try this request:
psql -d gis -c “select name from planet_osm_point;”
so i think my database seems works correctly
thanks a lot for your response
regards, nicolas
Hi, to see the actual tile you should type
http://XXXXX/osm_tiles/18/131989/93435.png
instead of
http://XXXXX/mod_tiles/18/131989/93435.png
The latter contains the information about the tile.
i try this url but i have a 404 error
http://XXXXX/osm_tiles/18/131989/93435.png
(
Not Found
The requested URL /osm_tiles/18/131989/93435.png was not found on this server.
Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu) Server at vpsXXXXX.ovh.net Port 80)
i follow every steps so i dont know where is the problem
thanks a lot
Can you give the link of your downloaded map? Sorry but you have to use HTML tag to add link in disqus comment system. Directly pasted link will be truncated by disqus.
I will try to import your map data and see if it will work on my side.
hello mr guoan.
i re test your tutorial and it works !!
tanks a lot
i have a bug because i have to write a new line:
sudo gpasswd -a username sudo.
( perhaps you can add this line for others users)
i have only 10 giga so i have to take 50giga more but what is the techniq to change the directory of tiles ( with the new 50 giga, its another partition)
regards
nicolas
Hi, first of all, thanks for the tutorial, it`s great.
One question, can you update the tutorial or explain how can we make a self updating OSM tile server so that each day, or each week the map will be updated with the latest changes that appeared in OSM, similar with what OSM site it`s doing now, where if you edit, in 5 minutes you will be able to see the changes.
Thank-you for your recipe! Unfortunately, I’m still running into frustrations with mod_tile .. I had to apt remove g++ to resolve one set of errors, had to apt install libpixman-1-0 to address a second set of errors, and now ‘make’ in mod_tile is giving me libtool warnings and an error, “cannot find the library ‘/home/travis/build/mapbox/mason/mason_packages/linux-x86_64/pixman/0.32.6/lib/libpixman-1.la’ or unhandled argument ‘/home/travis/build/mapbox/mason/mason_packages/linux-x86_64/pixman/0.32.6/lib/libpixman-1.la'”
No idea who travis is, or why his homedir is hardcoded into a path somewhere 🙂
Any thoughts on what I might do? Or should I run your recipe from a brand-new 16.04 install and hope for better luck?
Hi, in the mod_tiles source directory there’s a hidden file named .travis.yml. Maybe you should check it out. And this tutorial is tested on a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 install.
Hi, Great tutorial! I was able to load in a small .pbf and serve the tiles to my leaflet viewer. I want to add another .pbf to my server and so I tried just doing the osm2pgsql line of Step-4 again, but with the new .pbf file. However when I restart the server (i.e. reboot the virtualmachine that is running it) I don’t see my knew area on the map, just the original one. Is there something else I need to do to load in new tiles?
Thanks!
*EDIT*
Actually I can see it now. I just had to zoom in and wait for a bit so the renderd service could process the request for the new area I was looking at.
I follow your steps, and I got
renderd.service is not a native service, redirecting to systemd-sysv-install
Executing /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable renderd
when sudo systemctl enable renderd
did I miss somethings?
I am new to linux, sorry if I ask stupid question…
This is normal. Ubuntu 16.04 use Systemd instead of Sysvinit.
On my ssh-server, I get
$ curl 127.0.0.1/osm-tiles/0/0/0.png
404 Not Found
Not Found
The requested URL /osm-tiles/0/0/0.png was not found on this server.
Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu) Server at 127.0.0.1 Port 80
The syslog shows that renderd is up and running. /var/lib/mod_tile/ is empty.
Thanks! I have made my own osm.
But there is a problem that I had tried a lot and still not resolved.
The fonts of Asian region, like China and Japan are squares.
After searching in google, I found that the problem is about a font, dejavu…
And I change all three font sets in style.xml
But still not work.
Could you help me with this?
Thank you Mr: Gouan, this is the most comprehensive and up to date tutorial i have seen, I think should be published in the OpenStreet site. The instructions there are outdated and truly not anybody is going to install in Ubuntu, but it gives an accurate idea of what it takes to set it up.
If you let me give you a couple suggestions, i think the swap area setting must come starting step 4, and for the sake of precision, it will be nice to add an instruction to exit osm user at the end of step 6.
Thanks for the suggestion, Fernando. The tutorial was updated.
Hi Mr. Guoan,
I’m having trouble with this.
I followed your instructions carefully but still got an error: 404 Not found when accessing it on browser.
Here’s the link of the map i downloaded: philippines-latest.osm.pbf
Please help me. Thanks.
If it’s a 404 error, then you should first check out the Apache error log /var/log/apache2/error.log to find out what caused the error.
Thanks for your response.
It says
debug: init_storage_backend: initialising file storage backend at: /var/lib/mod_tile
[Mon Sep 12 18:16:09.150037 2016] [tile:warn] socket connect failed for: /var/run/renderd/renderd.sock with reason: No such file or directory
[Mon Sep 12 18:16:09.150153 2016] [tile:notice] Failed to connect to renderer
Checked the /var/run/renderd/ folder and found out that it was empty.
Tried to remove the semicolon on renderd.sock part of the renderd.conf, but still got the same error.
Really appreciate your help.
I’m sorry but I still got the same error.
I had the same problem. After investigating I found out that after the installation of mod_tile, its shared libraries were not yet registered correctly to the system. Run “sudo service renderd status” to check what is going wrong and also take a look into /var/log/syslog. In my case libiniparser.so.3 was not found by renderd. Simply running “sudo ldconfig” fixed it. After restarting renderd via “sudo service renderd restart” the error disappeared and everything was working as expected.
OMG that worked, thanks mate been stuck on the for a few hours 🙂
message to self for when i find my self here again as i just did, it is a L jason not an I in ldconfig 🙂
Hello,
Great page. Helped lot. I have one question. I installed by your steps and it works good. what If i wanna use different map style. How can i change map style without import all data again? thank you.
Hello,
followed your tutorial and was able to install my tile server nickel, thank you very much.
I wonder if I can install gisgraphy along with the tile server, because I need geocoding and reverse gecocoding services.
I found this tutorial http://stevenyue.com/blogs/install-gisgraphy-on-ubuntu-12-04-from-scratch/
but I wonder if it’s valid for Ubuntu 16.
Any advice on how to proceed since tile server is already in production.
Thank you again
Loving the tutorial. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get this working. 🙁 Any tile request create following debug note in the apache errorlog. debug: init_storage_backend: initialising file storage backend at: /var/lib/mod_tile
I get a 404 when I request the test tile. The requested URL /osm_tiles/0/0/0.png was not found on this server.
Sorry… I had something misspelled. Got it working straight away after redoing the tutorial.
Hello Mr Guoan , first of all appreciating your work . its fantastic , helpful . But one question , that is : if i add a country extract as map data , then if it possible to add the whole planet later by overwriting the country extract map data in the postgreSQL database .
I redid your tutorial and did a writeup myself. http://wordpress-dbauszus.rhcloud.com/osm-tileserver-on-a-vanilla-ubuntu-16-04-droplet/
Thanks so much for breaking ground on Ubuntu 16.04… One question though. I was not able to have renderd starting when I reboot my server. Is this working for you? Do you have any ideas what I might have done wrong.
I encountered the same problem before I wrote this tutorial. I fixed it, however I don’t remember what exactly caused this problem. I think you should check out your system log to see what is wrong.
I made it way EASIER to create a local tileserver! Just use my docker image:
https://github.com/danielsnider/docker-mapproxy-googlemaps
Hello Mr Guoan,
Thank a lot for this tutorial …it was very helpful….
Hii Mr. Guoan, what a great tutorial! Thx
I follow qll the steps qnd my own server osm worksm but my question would be this:
how i do to access to the map from another computer? when i do this i only get the frame and no map!
Plz help
What a great tutorial. People i have a Problem. He is so slow, what can that be?
Great and simple tutorial that works !
Can i render png-tile-files in home dir for furher work ?
Command _render_list_ do render meta files, not png.
Hi Mr. Guoan,
I followed this tutorial throughly and came to end as all goes well.
But as u said your-server-ip/osm_tiles/0/0/0.png
when i am looking for map in web browser like localhost/osm_tiles/0/0/0.png, i m getting nothing.
could not find the directory there. need help
Same problem. I realized that I had a typo when I was writing the configuration files. I recommend you to check the status of renderd.
Thank you for your tutorial!
Unfortunately I am having a problem where renderd I guess does not create the osm_files directory. I don’t know why, but I get a “Not Found” error when I check localhost/osm_tiles/0/0/0.png
I have a world map download on an Azure VM with 16cores, 112GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD disk space.
You can check it at http://medalbgis.westeurope.cloudapp.azure.com
Can you please offer some help? Or should I try with smaller maps? I got the same problem when I tried with the map of Albania for the first time and thought that maybe the map was incomplete or something, I don’t even know… But I keep getting the same issue with the global map so…
Please help!
Btw, Happy New Year 2018
for the mapnik part in step 5 see https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/wiki/UbuntuInstallation. Given installation method doesn’t work for Ubuntu 16.04 (no libmapnik-dev dependencies in xenial anymore)
Hi,
Is it possible to generate data in another EPSG eg 2180: EPSG? If in style, change srs to +proj=tmerc +lat_0=0 +lon_0=19 +k=0.9993 +x_0=500000 +y_0=-5300000 +ellps=GRS80 +units=m +no_defs, renderd return “Unknown projection string, using web mercator as never the less”. I’m using tutorial from swich2osm fro ubuntu 16.04.
Greetings from Poland.
Hi, this is a great tutorial ! It saves my life.
But I found an issue of rendering Chinese character on the map. All the Chinese characters are displayed as blank squares. How can I fix this issue ?
Could you find a solution to this?
Great tutorial, worked from 1st run!
i wonder if there’s a way to modify the style the tiles are rendered with, and if so what is the process to follow? are there any samples that can be tried?
Thanks a lot 🙂
how would one update the tile server using the osm.pbf files?
All the tutorials seems to stray away from the way that it was built in this tutorial.
I have this same question, Gareth. When I went through this tutorial, I only used one state’s osm.pbf file and had no issues rendering a map for that state. When I went back through step 4 of the tutorial to import map data from a second state into PostgreSQL, I was unable to render a map for that state. There has to be a way to update or import additional maps?
Thanks. Great!
Question.
how to create subdomains to speed up
a.tile…
b.tile…
c.tile…
d.tile…
Really appreciate sir ,
At the step
I have following problem
TypeError: Cannot read property 'hasOwnProperty' of undefined at Object.ref.setVersion (/usr/lib/nodejs/carto/lib/carto/tree/reference.js:19:34) at /usr/lib/nodejs/carto/lib/carto/tree/reference.js:209:5 at Object. (/usr/lib/nodejs/carto/lib/carto/tree/reference.js:213:3) at Module._compile (module.js:652:30) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:663:10) at Module.load (module.js:565:32) at tryModuleLoad (module.js:505:12) at Function.Module._load (module.js:497:3) at Module.require (module.js:596:17) at require (internal/module.js:11:18)Would you mind helping me please?
Thanks in advance
@sepehr
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51288524/typeerror-cannot-read-property-hasownproperty-of-undefined-node-carto/51540310#51540310
Hi man,
great tutorial thanks a lot.
i have a question did you make any tutorial on how i can make a vector tile server?
thank you in advance.
Hi. Can you say to me how to compile this styles for osm server? https://github.com/cyberang3l/osm-maps
Hello,it works great. but i failed to install on ubuntu 18. Can you also guide us about it?
Thank you.
https://switch2osm.org/manually-building-a-tile-server-18-04-lts/
With this great tutorial it was possible to run an own OSM server.
After the update from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04 the rendering process was not working anymore with the following error: socket connect failed for: /var/run/renderd/renderd.sock
Any experiences with this effect?
Thanks in advance.
Reminder, given the recent compromises, you should include adding a firewall/iptables entry so that postgres is NOT open to the internet.
Thanks for your suggestion about firewall. By default, PostgreSQL listens on the localhost only.
Hi
Thank you very much for a very simple and comprehensive tutorial.
Is there any leads on how to make the server auto update?
How do i automate the DB imports so that i can run the render_list function again?
I’m going to use it on a small country (not entire world), so it is around 300-400mb download of mapdata. (no need of satellite images)
thanks.
Hi,
I am trying to build maps of India along with disputed boundaries. I tried many links and suggestions but nothing is working for me. Can you please help me.