CFmapserver

CFmapserver is a wrapper utility for deploying MapServer on Kubernetes, and enabling automated synchronization of mapfiles from S3.

How it works

CFmapserver is available as a Helm chart, which enables deploying MapServer instances on Kubernetes with minimum configuration. MapServer instances get deployed as containers and serve map files from their /etc/mapserver folder. The contents of this folder are populated based on the contents of your S3 bucket. If the map files in the bucket change (e.g. are added, deleted or updated), a Kubernetes cronjob will periodically update the /etc/mapserver contents as well.

Prerequisites

• A running Kubernetes cluster (e.g. on CloudFerro WAW3-1 cloud, with integrated EO data repository) -> CloudFerro Kubernetes on Magnum installation guide
• kubectl installed -> Install kubectl on Linux
• Helm installed -> Installing Helm
• An S3 bucket with mapfiles and S3 credentials -> CloudFerro guideline, EC2 keys generation

How to use this chart?

• Add repository locally:

  helm repo add cfmapserver https://cloudferro.github.io/CFmapserver/charts
  

• Create a customization file my-values.yaml by pulling the default file, then edit this file. At minimum, fill in the S3 coordinates (name of your bucket and S3 credentials). You can override other default values, in line with the configuration guidelines.

  wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CloudFerro/cfmapserver/main/charts/values.yaml -O my-values.yaml
  

• Install the chart:

  helm install cfmapserver cfmapserver/CFmapserver -f my-values.yaml --namespace cfmapserver --create-namespace
  

• Check that the service is running. The public IP assignment will take a couple minutes:

  kubectl get services
  

  You can verify that a mapfile is being served e.g. by typing:

  http://<your-service-public-ip>/?map=/etc/mapserver/<your-mapfile.map>&service=WMS&request=GetCapabilities
  

Configuration guidelines

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the template Helm chart and their default values.

Parameter	Description	Default
s3Maps.host	S3 endpoint URL for storing map files	https://s3.waw3-1.cloudferro.com
s3Maps.bucket	S3 bucket for map files (please store mapfiles directly in this S3 bucket, use of folders is currently not supported with the default setup)	``
s3Maps.accessKey	S3 access key for map files	``
s3Maps.secretKey	S3 secret key for map files	``
cronJobSchedule	Synchronization schedule between S3 bucket and map files path, in cron format (default is every day at midnight)	0 0 * * *
image.repository	Repository of MapServer Docker image	camptocamp\mapserver
image.tag	Version/Tag of MapServer image	7.6-20-04
image.mapFilesPath	Path to serve map files (do not change if using the default MapServer image)	/etc/mapserver
initImage.repository	Repository with Docker image of the initContainer used for syncing mapfiles	cfro\mapserver-init
initImage.tag	Tag of the initContainer image	0.1.1
service.type	Kubernetes service type exposing port	LoadBalancer
service.port	TCP Port for this service	80
resources.limits.memory	Pod memory resource limits in MiB (1Mi = 1 MiB)	1024Mi
resources.limits.cpu	Pod CPU resource limits (1000m = 1 (v)CPU core)	1000m
autoscaling.enabled	Whether to apply Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA)	false
replicas	How many instances of MapServer to deploy (if autoscaling is disabled)	1
autoscaling.minReplicas	Min # of MapServer instances (if autoscaling is enabled)	1
autoscaling.maxReplicas	Max # of MapServer instances (if autoscaling is enabled)	10

In the testing phase you might want to adjust the frequency of the cronjob refresh to trigger more frequent uploads from S3. E.g. the below changes the already deployed cronjob to run every minute.

kubectl patch cronjob cfmapserver-cronjob -p '{"spec":{"schedule": "* * * * *"}}'

Similarly, one can patch other resources in the already running deployment.

Customizing the initialization script

Prior to deploying each MapServer container by CFmapserver, an initialization script runs in a separate Kubernetes initContainer. The default script checks for the contents of the S3 bucket defined in values.yaml, pulls the files with .map extension and copies them to the mounted /work-dir folder. This folder is then mounted to the MapServer container in /etc/mapserver path, thus the mapfiles from S3 get synced to MapServer.

The sequence described above takes place the first time when CFmapserver is deployed. Then, a cronjob running on the cluster, reinitiates this sequence periodically on a specified time interval.

The init container script can be substituted by any other script, performing custom logic e.g. applying custom changes to mapfiles prior to loading them to MapServer, pulling from different source, setting other environment variables etc. To apply such customization, you can create a custom Docker image containing a modified script and place it in a Docker repository. Then point to this image in the values.yaml (initImage.repository and initImage.tag values).

The caveats about the custom init script:

• The script will have access to the environment variables provided in values.yaml s3Maps section(S3_MAPS_HOST, S3_MAPS_BUCKET, S3_MAPS_ACCESS_KEY, S3_MAPS_SECRET_KEY)
• The script should ensure the required mapfiles in s3Maps bucket are up to date (placed in /work-dir path in initContainer)

Accessing protected data in S3 buckets

Mapfiles could point to protected geospatial data in S3 buckets (e.g. tiff images, .vrt files), where authentication using EC2 keypair is required (access key, secret key). The keys provided in the S3Maps bucket, do not directly cater for this use case.

To access geo data in private buckets, the initialization script should be ammended and resources should use VSIS3. The S3 keys should be provided to VSIS3 driver in the containers either via configuration file, config section in map files or via required environment variables.