Installation¶

The installation is carried out via the command line program gview.deploy or gview.deploy.exe. This tool performs the following tasks:

Fresh installation of gView.WebApps and gView.Server
Management of deployment profiles (e.g., local, test, staging, production)
Distribution of configuration changes (e.g., mapserver.json, gview-web.config)

Preparation¶

Prerequisite: Installation of .NET App Runtime 8.0.x.

Windows:

On Windows, the program can be copied to C:\deploy\gview-gis. Then, the EXE file can simply be executed.

Linux:

The installation package can be extracted to the directory /home/{user}/deploy/gview-gis.

First, necessary packages required for gView GIS should be installed. These are partially located in the _libs directory, while some packages (proj4, skia) are installed via the script _libs_install.sh:

To do this, execute the following:

sudo chmod +x _libs_install.sh    # if not already marked as executable
./_libs_install.sh

Then, the Deploy program can be started with the following command:

dotnet gView.Deploy.dll

Note

The following description is based on a Windows system. On Linux, however, the installation should proceed similarly by invoking the Deploy Tool.

Delivering a New Version¶

When starting the program for the first time, a profile must be created first. The profile could be, for example, test, staging, or production. Since in the first step we only want to test gView GIS locally, a profile named local is suitable for the start:

C:\> .\gview.deploy.exe

Work-Directory: C:\\deploy\\gview-gis
Choose a profile or create a new by enter an unique name, eg. production, staging, test
Input profile index [0]: local

In the next step, the program offers to download the latest release from GitHub, if it is not already present.

Do you want to download latetest version from GitHub? Y/N [Y]

If that is not possible, the latest release can also be downloaded manually. To do this, the ZIP files must be placed in the download directory. For example, here: C:\deploy\gview-gis\download

If ZIP files are in the download directory, the different versions are displayed:

Choose a version
0 ... 6.24.1801
Input version index [0]:

The latest version is assigned index 0.

Note

All values entered through gview.deploy do not need to be re-entered in subsequent calls. Instead, these values are displayed with an index number. One only needs to enter the corresponding number, or simply press ENTER if the desired index is the suggested value, e.g., Input version index [0] => ENTER => Version with index 0.

In the next step, it can be determined which products should be installed. Everything deploys both gView.Server and gView.Web:

Choose a product
0 ... Everything
1 ... gView.Server
2 ... gView.Web
Input product index [0]:

After the version and product have been selected, the deployment tool asks again whether the chosen version should indeed be deployed with the profile:

Deploy 'Everything' from version 6.24.1801 to profile local
Do you want to continue? Y/N [Y]

Pressing ENTER or Y starts the deployment process.

When publishing a profile (here local) for the first time, some values need to be provided. If you want to use the default value, simply confirm by pressing ENTER.

Target installation path [C:\apps\gview-gis]:
Repsitory path [C:\apps\gview-gis\local\gview-repository]:
gView Server online url [http://localhost:5050]:

Target installation path: The path where gView-GIS should be installed. Under this directory, the deployment tool will also create a folder with the profile name and version. Here, the app would be installed at C:\\apps\\gview-gis\\local\\6.24.1801.
Repository path: In the repository path, various files necessary for the software’s operation are stored, such as map documents (XML files) published by the map server. The repository folder is usually placed in the directory of the profile (here: C:\\apps\\gview-gis\\local). Since the folder is not in the versions directory, it can be immediately used by a newly installed version. It is important that different profiles use their own repository directories.
gView Server online URL: A URL at which the gView.Server will be accessible. If you want to test the local profile and only run the programs locally, this is usually done through http://localhost:5050. The advantage of setting this value here is that later, in the gView.WebApps app, an additional tile for accessing the gView.Server will be offered, which facilitates administration. Without this URL, only tiles for gView.Carto and gView.Explorer would be displayed.

The next values we set are the Admin User and the Admin password. We also define a Carto User. The password must be entered for each:

gView Admin Username [admin]:
gView Admin Password [*****]: my-secret-admin-password
gView Admin Username [carto]:
gView Admin Password [*****]: my-secret-carto-password

The difference between the two users is that the Carto User can only access limited tools. For example, he cannot use gView.Explorer but only gView.Carto. Furthermore, he does not see the actual Connection Strings of the connections. The Carto User can thus only access predefined connections but cannot create his own connections to databases, etc. This user should be used by those who want to create new maps. These users generally do not need to know the database credentials.

Afterwards, the deployment process begins:

***********************************************************************
Create a new webgis repositiry C:\apps\gview-gis\local\gview-repository
***********************************************************************

Deploy version 6.24.1801
Deploy gView Server:
...succeeded 972 items created
Deploy gView WebApps:
...succeeded 448 items created
Overrides
Copy C:\deploy\gview-gis\_deploy_repository\profiles\local\server\override\_config\mapserver.json
...succeeded 1 items created/overridden
Copy C:\deploy\gview-gis\_deploy_repository\profiles\local\web\override\_config\gview-web.config
...succeeded 1 items created/overridden

Both gView.WebApps and gView.Server are deployed. After the ZIP files are unpacked, user-specific files from the directory _deploy_repository\profiles\{profile}\[server|web]\override are copied to the respective application directory. This process overwrites the configuration from the installation package with the configuration from the current profile.

Note

Any files can be copied into the Override directories, which are then additionally copied or overwritten in the application directories. Configuration files should never be changed directly in the application directory (deploy directory), but always in the Override directory. This ensures that changes to the configuration are copied again with the next update of a profile.

Modify Current Configuration¶

If changes are made to the configuration (e.g., mapserver.json), this is done in the Override directory. Afterward, when you run gview.deploy again, you receive the following message:

Choose a profile or create a new by enter an unique name, eg. production, staging, test
0 ... local
Input profile index [0]:

Do you want to download latetest version from GitHub? Y/N [Y]

Choose a version
0 ... 6.24.1801
Input version index [0]:

Deploy version 6.24.1801 to profile local
Do you want to continue? Y/N [Y]
Target installation path: C:\apps\gview-gis
Repsitory path: C:\apps\gview-gis/local/gview-repository
gView Server online url: http://localhost:5050
gView Admin Username: admin
gView Admin Password:
gView User Username: carto
gView Carto Password:

Deploy version 6.24.1801


**************************************

Warning: version already deployed

***************************************

Overrides
Copy C:\deploy\gview-gis\_deploy_repository\profiles\local\server\override\_config\mapserver.json
...succeeded 1 items created/overridden
Copy C:\deploy\gview-gis\_deploy_repository\profiles\local\web\override\_config\gview-web.config
...succeeded 1 items created/overridden

A warning appears that this version has already been deployed. No data are copied from the ZIP files. Only the Overrides are executed.