Seeding#

Introduction#

The MapProxy creates all tiles on demand. To improve the performance for commonly requested areas it is possible to pre-generate these tiles. The mapproxy-seed script does this task.

The tool can seed one or more polygon or BBOX areas for each cache. It can seed missing tiles and refresh old tiles. A cleanup can be used to remove old tiles.

Method#

MapProxy does not seed the tile pyramid level by level, but traverses the tile pyramid depth-first. It starts in the first zoom level and decides if the tiles in the next zoom level need to be seeded by checking each subtile for intersection with the coverage. It recursively repeats this step for all tiles below till it reaches the last zoom level to seed. Only then, before getting back to the parent tile, the tile is actually seeded.

The following shows in which order tiles are seeded for a simple cache with three levels:

Level 0 with 1 tile:

          21

Level 1 with 4 tiles:

         5  10
        15  20

Level 2 with 16 tiles:

      1  2  6  7
      3  4  8  9
     11 12 16 17
     13 14 18 19

This method is optimized to work with the caches of your operating system and geospatial database, as the same area is requested for multiple scales in direct succession.

It also makes checks against complex coverages efficient as subtiles can be rejected early on.

mapproxy-seed#

The command line script expects a seed configuration that describes which tiles from which layer should be generated. See configuration for the format of the file.

Options#

-s <seed.yaml>, --seed-conf=<seed.yaml>#: The seed configuration. You can also pass the configuration as the last argument to mapproxy-seed

-f <mapproxy.yaml>, --proxy-conf=<mapproxy.yaml>#: The MapProxy configuration to use. This file should describe all caches and grids that the seed configuration references.

-c N, --concurrency N#: The number of concurrent seed worker. Some parts of the seed tool are CPU intensive (image splitting and encoding), use this option to distribute that load across multiple CPUs. To limit the concurrent requests to the source WMS see concurrent_requests

-n, --dry-run#: This will simulate the seed/cleanup process without requesting, creating or removing any tiles.

-l N, --skip-geoms-for-last-levels N#: This will skip checking the intersections between tiles and seed geometries on the last N levels.

--skip-uncached#: This will seed only tiles which are already in the cache. This option is interesting in combination with the configuration entry refresh_before to refresh regularly the existing tiles and to avoid loading all available tiles.

--summary#: Print a summary of all seeding and cleanup tasks and exit.

--quiet#: Reduce the output of the progress logger.

-i, --interactive#: Print a summary of each seeding and cleanup task and ask if mapproxy-seed should seed/cleanup that task. It will query for each task before it starts.

--seed=<task1,task2,..>#: Only seed the named seeding tasks. You can select multiple tasks with a list of comma seperated names, or you can use the --seed option multiple times. You can use ALL to select all tasks. This disables all cleanup tasks unless you also use the --cleanup option.

--cleanup=<task1,task2,..>#: Only cleanup the named tasks. You can select multiple tasks with a list of comma seperated names, or you can use the --cleanup option multiple times. You can use ALL to select all tasks. This disables all seeding tasks unless you also use the --seed option.

--continue#: Continue an interrupted seed progress. MapProxy will start the seeding progress at the begining if the progress file (--progress-file) was not found. MapProxy can only continue if the previous seed was started with the --progress-file or --continue option.

--progress-file#: Filename where MapProxy stores the seeding progress for the --continue option. Defaults to .mapproxy_seed_progress in the current working directory. MapProxy will remove that file after a successful seed.

--duration#: Stop seeding process after this duration. This option accepts duration in the following format: 120s, 15m, 4h, 0.5d Use this option in combination with --continue to be able to resume the seeding. Works only on Linux and Unix systems.

--reseed-file#: File created by mapproxy-seed at the start of a new seeding.

--reseed-interval#: Only start seeding if --reseed-file is older then this duration. This option accepts duration in the following format: 120s, 15m, 4h, 0.5d Use this option in combination with --continue to be able to resume the seeding. By default,

--use-cache-lock#: Lock each cache to prevent multiple parallel mapproxy-seed calls to work on the same cache. It does not lock normal operation of MapProxy.

--log-config#: The logging configuration file to use.

New in version 1.5.0: --continue and --progress-file option

New in version 1.7.0: --log-config option

New in version 1.10.0: --duration, --reseed-file and --reseed-interval option

Examples#

Seed with concurrency of 4:

mapproxy-seed -f mapproxy.yaml -c 4 seed.yaml

Print summary of all seed tasks and exit:

mapproxy-seed -f mapproxy.yaml -s seed.yaml --summary --seed ALL

Interactively select which tasks should be seeded:

mapproxy-seed -f mapproxy.yaml -s seed.yaml -i

Seed task1 and task2 and cleanup task3 with concurrency of 2:

mapproxy-seed -f mapproxy.yaml -s seed.yaml -c 2 --seed task1,task2 \
 --cleanup task3

Configuration#

Note

The configuration changed with MapProxy 1.0.0, the old format with seeds and views is still supported but will be deprecated in the future. See below for information about the old format.

The configuration is a YAML file with three sections:

seeds: Configure seeding tasks.
cleanups: Configure cleanup tasks.
coverages: Configure coverages for seeding and cleanup tasks.

Example#

seeds:
  myseed1:
    [...]
  myseed2:
    [...]

cleanups:
  mycleanup1:
    [...]
  mycleanup2:
    [...]

coverages:
  mycoverage1:
    [...]
  mycoverage2:
    [...]

`seeds`#

Here you can define multiple seeding tasks. A task defines what should be seeded. Each task is configured as a dictionary with the name of the task as the key. You can use the names to select single tasks on the command line of mapproxy-seed.

mapproxy-seed will always process one tile pyramid after the other. Each tile pyramid is defined by a cache and a corresponding grid. A cache with multiple grids consists of multiple tile pyramids. You can configure which tile pyramid you want to seed with the caches and grids options.

You can further limit the part of the tile pyramid with the levels and coverages options.

Each seed tasks takes the following options:

`caches`#

A list with the caches that should be seeded for this task. The names should match the cache names in your MapProxy configuration.

`grids`#

A list with the grid names that should be seeded for the caches. The names should match the grid names in your MapProxy configuration. All caches of this tasks need to support the grids you specify here. By default, the grids that are common to all configured caches will be seeded.

`levels`#

Either a list of levels that should be seeded, or a dictionary with from and to that define a range of levels. You can omit from to start at level 0, or you can omit to to seed till the last level. By default, all levels will be seeded.

Examples:

# seed multiple levels
levels: [2, 3, 4, 8, 9]

# seed a single level
levels: [3]

# seed from level 0 to 10 (including level 10)
levels:
  to: 10

# seed from level 3 to 6 (including level 3 and 6)
levels:
  from: 3
  to: 6

`coverages`#

A list with coverage names. Limits the seed area to the coverages. By default, the whole coverage of the grids will be seeded.

`refresh_before`#

Regenerate all tiles that are older than the given date. The date can either be absolute or relative. By default, existing tiles will not be refreshed.

MapProxy can also use the last modification time of a file. File paths should be relative to the proxy configuration or absolute.

Examples:

# absolute as ISO time
refresh_before:
  time: 2010-10-21T12:35:00

# relative from the start time of the seed process
refresh_before:
  weeks: 1
  days: 7
  hours: 4
  minutes: 15

# modification time of a given file
refresh_before:
  mtime: path/to/file

Example#

seeds:
  myseed1:
    caches: [osm_cache]
    coverages: [germany]
    grids: [GLOBAL_MERCATOR]
    levels:
      to: 10

  myseed2:
    caches: [osm_cache]
    coverages: [niedersachsen, bremen, hamburg]
    grids: [GLOBAL_MERCATOR]
    refresh_before:
      weeks: 3
    levels:
      from: 11
      to: 15

`cleanups`#

Here you can define multiple cleanup tasks. Each task is configured as a dictionary with the name of the task as the key. You can use the names to select single tasks on the command line of mapproxy-seed.

`caches`#

A list with the caches where you want to cleanup old tiles. The names should match the cache names in your MapProxy configuration.

`grids`#

A list with the grid names for the caches where you want to cleanup. The names should match the grid names in your MapProxy configuration. All caches of this tasks need to support the grids you specify here. By default, the grids that are common to all configured caches will be used.

`levels`#

Either a list of levels that should be cleaned up, or a dictionary with from and to that define a range of levels. You can omit from to start at level 0, or you can omit to to cleanup till the last level. By default, all levels will be cleaned up.

Examples:

# cleanup multiple levels
levels: [2, 3, 4, 8, 9]

# cleanup a single level
levels: [3]

# cleanup from level 0 to 10 (including level 10)
levels:
  to: 10

# cleanup from level 3 to 6 (including level 3 and 6)
levels:
  from: 3
  to: 6

`coverages`#

A list with coverage names. Limits the cleanup area to the coverages. By default, the whole coverage of the grids will be cleaned up.

Note

Be careful when cleaning up caches with large coverages and levels with lots of tiles (>14). Without coverages, the seed tool works on the file system level and it only needs to check for existing tiles if they should be removed. With coverages, the seed tool traverses the whole tile pyramid and needs to check every posible tile if it exists and if it should be removed. This is much slower.

`remove_all`#

When set to true, remove all tiles regardless of the time they were created. You still limit the tiles with the levels and coverage options. MapProxy will try to remove tiles in a more efficient way with this option. For example: It will remove complete level directories for file caches instead of comparing each tile with a timestamp.

`remove_before`#

Remove all tiles that are older than the given date. The date can either be absolute or relative. remove_before defaults to the start time of the seed process, so that newly created tile will not be removed.

MapProxy can also use the last modification time of a file. File paths should be relative to the proxy configuration or absolute.

Examples:

# absolute as ISO time
remove_before:
  time: 2010-10-21T12:35:00

# relative from the start time of the seed process
remove_before:
  weeks: 1
  days: 7
  hours: 4
  minutes: 15

# modification time of a given file
remove_before:
  mtime: path/to/file

Example#

cleanups:
  highres:
    caches: [osm_cache]
    grids: [GLOBAL_MERCATOR, GLOBAL_SPERICAL]
    remove_before:
      days: 14
    levels:
      from: 16
  old_project:
    caches: [osm_cache]
    grids: [GLOBAL_MERCATOR]
    coverages: [mypolygon]
    levels:
      from: 14
      to: 18

`coverages`#

There are three different ways to describe the extent of a seeding or cleanup task.

a simple rectangular bounding box,
a text file with one or more polygons in WKT format,
polygons from any data source readable with OGR (e.g. Shapefile, GeoJSON, PostGIS)

Read the coverage documentation for more information.

Note

You will need to install additional dependencies, if you want to use polygons to define your geographical extent of the seeding area, instead of simple bounding boxes. See coverage documentation.

Each coverage has a name that is used in the seed and cleanup task configuration. If you don’t specify a coverage for a task, then the BBOX of the grid will be used.

Example#

coverages:
  germany:
    datasource: 'shps/world_boundaries_m.shp'
    where: 'CNTRY_NAME = "Germany"'
    srs: 'EPSG:900913'
  switzerland:
    datasource: 'polygons/SZ.txt'
    srs: 'EPSG:900913'
  austria:
    bbox: [9.36, 46.33, 17.28, 49.09]
    srs: 'EPSG:4326'

Output#

mapproxy-seed prints out the progress of the current seeding task on the console.

Example progress log:

[16:48:26]  4  41.00% 582388, 4734701, 586740, 4737666 (5812 tiles)

The output starts with the current time and ends with the number of tiles it has seeded or removed so far. The third value is the current progress in percent. The progress can make large jumps, if the seeding detects that a tile and all its subtiles are outside of the seeding coverage. The second and fourth value show the level and bounding box of where the seeding tool is in this moment. Keep in mind, that it does not seed level by level. This is described in seeding method.

Example: Background seeding#

New in version 1.10.0: Works on Linux and Unix only

The --duration option allows you run MapProxy seeding for a limited time. In combination with the --continue option, you can resume the seeding process at a later time. You can use this to call mapproxy-seed with cron to seed in the off-hours.

However, this will restart the seeding process from the beginning every time the is seeding completed. You can prevent this with the --reeseed-interval and --reseed-file option. The following example starts seeding for six hours. It will seed for another six hours, every time you call this command again. Once all seed and cleanup tasks were processed the command will exit immediately every time you call it within 14 days after the first call. After 14 days, the modification time of the reseed.time file will be updated and the re-seeding process starts again.

mapproxy-seed -f mapproxy.yaml -s seed.yaml  \
  --reseed-interval 14d --duration 6h --reseed-file reseed.time \
  --continue --progress-file .mapproxy_seed_progress

You can use the --reseed-file as a refresh_before and remove_before mtime-file.

Old Configuration#

Note

The following description is for the old seed configuration.

The configuration contains two keys: views and seeds. views describes the geographical extents that should be seeded. seeds links actual layers with those views.

Seeds#

Contains a dictionary with layer/view mapping.:

seeds:
    cache1:
        views: ['world', 'germany', 'oldb']
    cache2:
        views: ['world', 'germany']
        remove_before:
            time: '2009-04-01T14:45:00'
            # or
            minutes: 15
            hours: 4
            days: 9
            weeks: 8

remove_before:

If present, recreate tiles if they are older than the date or time delta. At the end of the seeding process all tiles that are older will be removed.

You can either define a fixed time or a time delta. The time is a ISO-like date string (no time-zones, no abbreviations). To define time delta use one or more seconds, minutes, hours, days or weeks entries.

Views#

Contains a dictionary with all views. Each view describes a coverage/geographical extent and the levels that should be seeded.

Coverages#

Note

You will need to install additional dependencies, if you want to use polygons to define your geographical extent of the seeding area, instead of simple bounding boxes. See coverage documentation.

There are three different ways to describe the extent of the seed view.

a simple rectangular bounding box,

a text file with one or more polygons in WKT format,

polygons from any data source readable with OGR (e.g. Shapefile, PostGIS)

Read the coverage documentation for more information.

Other options#

srs:: A list with SRSs. If the layer contains caches for multiple SRS, only the caches that match one of the SRS in this list will be seeded.
res:: Seed until this resolution is cached.

level:: A number until which this layer is cached, or a tuple with a range of levels that should be cached.

Example configuration#

views:
  germany:
    datasource: 'shps/world_boundaries_m.shp'
    where: 'CNTRY_NAME = "Germany"'
    srs: 'EPSG:900913'
    level: [0, 14]
    srs: ['EPSG:900913', 'EPSG:4326']
  switzerland:
    datasource: 'polygons/SZ.txt'
    srs: EPSG:900913
    level: [0, 14]
    srs: ['EPSG:900913']
  austria:
    bbox: [9.36, 46.33, 17.28, 49.09]
    srs: EPSG:4326
    level: [0, 14]
    srs: ['EPSG:900913']

seeds:
  osm:
    views: ['germany', 'switzerland', 'austria']
    remove_before:
      time: '2010-02-20T16:00:00'
  osm_roads:
    views: ['germany']
    remove_before:
      days: 30

Seeding

Seeding#

Introduction#

Method#

mapproxy-seed#

Options#

Examples#

Configuration#

Example#

seeds#

caches#

grids#

levels#

coverages#

refresh_before#

Example#

cleanups#

caches#

grids#

levels#

coverages#

remove_all#

remove_before#

Example#

coverages#

Example#

Output#

Example: Background seeding#

Old Configuration#

Seeds#

Views#

Coverages#

Other options#

Example configuration#

`seeds`#

`caches`#

`grids`#

`levels`#

`coverages`#

`refresh_before`#

`cleanups`#

`caches`#

`grids`#

`levels`#

`coverages`#

`remove_all`#

`remove_before`#

`coverages`#