[Tile-serving] New option for tile server: Nginx+Tirex

[Hiroshi Miura(@osmf)]

Hi everyone,

I've been working for development of OSM Japan's tile server
from this March.

Because we are using Nginx(*1) as http server in osm.jp site,
I selected Nginx as tile cache server infrastructure naturally.

Thanks for powerful features of Nginx and its 3rd party modules,
we developed a tile server front-end on Nginx that work with
Tirex and PostgreSQL/PostGIS.

You can download release 1.0 of tile server front-end here:

http://osmfj.github.io/tilecache


This project provide detailed installation documents,
includes postgis, tirex, and osmosis.
And it also provide several scripts which helps
administrator to build and operate tile cache server and/or tile server.

You are always welcome to join, as same as other project,
forking, hacking and pull requesting on

https://github.com/osmfj/tilecache

You may be interested in our launchpad PPA repository.
There are many recent packages; mapnik, nginx,
osm2pgsql, tirex, render-expired, mod_tile, postgis,etc..

https://launchpad.net/~osmjapan/+archive/ppa

We use a web chat on Lingr.com for developer discussion.
http//lingr.com/signup?letmein=osmfj_devel

The tile cache/server is built upon LUA language
platform embedded in Nginx server.
It makes enable to process complex conditions and
traffic routing, rendering offerings.

Nginx Tile cache & Tile Server 1.0 can process following;

１． Change tile style/maps according to client IP address/nation or city accessing.

２． OSM Tile cache server

３． OSM Tile rendering server

４． Static tile replacement at specific x/y/z for specific users.

Even though it has such a rich feature, non-blocking I/O architecture of Nginx
should serve high performance on tile distribution.

Now OSM Japan http://osm.jp/ has a slippy map based on our own tile server
provisioning such as:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90779460/typical_configuration.png

it also can become
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90779460/extensive_configuration.png


And last, I've just started a library development that is based on it.
https://github.com/miurahr/lua-nginx-osm/

I hope you enjoy our products.

(*1)Nginx: http://nginx.org/
Nginx is a free, open-source, high-performance
HTTP server and reverse proxy. Nginx now hosts
nearly 12.18% (22.2M) of active sites across all
domains. Nginx is known for its high performance,
stability, rich feature set, simple configuration,
and low resource consumption.




Hiroshi

--
OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan
Representative director
Hiroshi Miura