[OSM-dev] Set up your "personal tile server" for experiments - what machine / installation suitable?

[Giuseppe Castagno]

Hi,

I set up a 'home-brew' small server to do what I think you have in mind.
Rest of answer follows.

Ulf Lamping wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I'm pretty much aware, that the responses to the following questions 
> will be subjective. However, I'm seeking for some advice to get a 
> "feeling" what could work for me (and probably others).
> 
> 
> I'm currently thinking to set up my own "personal tile server", 
> basically to experiment with rendering.
> 
> My thoughts are:
> 
> - postgis/postgres DB

I used postgis 1.4 home build and postgres 8.4, this last one from
Ubuntu 9.10 I'm using as a OS.
Ubuntu version is amd64 server.

> - mapnik rendering

I used mapnik too, svn release 1303.

> - tile server (apache / lighthttpd?)

I used apache2 from the distro plus the mod_tile set up you can find in
osm svn repository

...

> 
> 
> I have a currently unused (somewhat older) machine:
> 
> - CPU 3 GHZ (single core)
> - 1 GB RAM
> - 1 TB disk space (total)

my hardware setup is as follow:

The motherboard is old compared to current ones: Abit AB9.
CPU Intel Quad Core 2.4 GHz;
8 MB Ram;
4 HDU 1TB, 2 RAID1 for OS and 2 RAID1 for osm stuff.
RAID1 is Linux software type (mdadm).

The quad core didn't really matter, the import used one cpu mainly 
sitting there waiting for I/O.

> 
> and I wonder if this would "do the job".
> 
> 
> I mean I don't care if it's once running 24h to import the planet or 
> 38h. However, if it turns out that later on applying the weekly changes 
> takes longer than a week this configuration is becoming a bit pointless ;-)

may be a good idea to start with would be to begin with small extract 
import.
For example with the above setup, importing Europe took 11h, importing
Italy took 20m.

Whereas importing the whole planet took around 85h.

Planet date was 20100113.

> 
> If it's obvious, that this machine can't deal with the task, what's the 
> weak spot? Will it be a good idea to add some more RAM, or is the CPU 
> too slow ...
> 
> 
> As I'm going to install the machine from scratch anyway. What OS to use? 
> I would prefer Ubuntu here - but what version/edition?

see my points above.

BeppeC56
-- 
Kind Regards,
Giuseppe Castagno
Acca Esse http://www.acca-esse.eu
giuseppe.castagno at acca-esse.eu
beppec56 at openoffice.org