Geoserver on Microsoft Azure Website

Question

I need to add some Geoserver data on my Azure Website. I'm just wondering that if I need to install Geoserver for that on my account (if it is possible) or is there some other way?

As I was just looking around, I found this link working http://geoserver.azurewebsites.net/ If this link is working, does it mean that we can configure Geoserver on Azure

Ankh

Answer 1

There are a couple of ways to do this.

One option is to use a plain old Azure Web App with the GeoServer web archive (WAR file).

To do this download the web archive version of GeoServer. Then create a web app in the Azure portal. Under application settings you need to specify Java version 8 and a Tomcat version above 7.0.65. Then all you need to do is ftp the GeoServer WAR file to /site/wwwroot/webapps.

Once you have done that you should be able to access GeoServer by visiting your web app with the path /geoserver appended to the url. But be patient, the initial start up is slow and can take a few minutes.

Another option is to deploy a container image. I have ended up creating one myself that is tailored for use in an Azure Web App.

To use it you will need a Linux App Service Plan. When creating your web app select Docker Hub as the container image source and use coderpatros/geoserver-azure-web-app as the image. You can also specify a tag to use a particular GeoServer version. i.e. coderpatros/geoserver-azure-web-app:2.14.2. The available tags can be found on Docker Hub at https://hub.docker.com/r/coderpatros/geoserver-azure-web-app/tags. After you've created the web app you need to go to application settings and set WEBSITES_ENABLE_APP_SERVICE_STORAGE to true to enable persistent storage.

Endothelium

I've used the first option you mention, deploying the GeoServer .war file to Azure web apps. However, any data stored outside of /home is deleted on server restart. This means all passwords, workspaces, layers, styles are lost as they are stored in cd /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/ROOT/data. Do you know how to solve this? – Scapegrace

@TheoF you need to set the geoserver data directory. The simplest way is to set the environment variable GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR. You can add that as an Azure App service setting. – Endothelium

thanks, I figured this out after my comment. First I SSH’d onto the machine and created a geoserver_data folder in /home. Then adding an Azure side setting on the app worked. Note that GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR and APPSETTING_GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR are changed at the same time (evident from running printenv command in SSH bash terminal). – Scapegrace

Answer 2

There is a OpenGeo Suite in Azure marketplace which helps in publishing maps and data from a variety of formats and sources with GeoServer.

Not sure if it will help you, but here ... OpenGeo Suite

Muskmelon

@Jay it doesn't exist any more. – Gamesmanship