6. Configuration of the Extension¶
Tools¶
Clicking the Tools button in Bridge will reveal all the configuration menu’s available in Bridge:
Todo
Add item on import configuration.
- Import configuration: allows you to import server connections and/or settings from another GeoCat Bridge instalation.
- Options: shows Bridge options.
- Server connections: to configure servers to publish map data and metadata.
- Contacts: to manage contacts.
- Data licenses: to manage data licenses.
Tools menu
Options¶
Publishing¶
Tab publishing
GS SLD Extensions¶
By default the SLD created is optimized to use GeoServer SLD extensions. If you want to use the SLD in an application where these extensions are not supported, uncheck this option.
Map Esri® default markers¶
By default a subset of symbols from the Esri® Default Marker font are mapped to symbols in Webdings, Wingdings and Wingdings2 since Esri® fonts are not standard available in the server where the layers are published. (See ESRI Symbol Mapping for a list of symbols). If you want to use the original font symbols, uncheck this option. The font used in the symbology needs to be installed on the server, otherwise this could result in rendering issues of the published layers. The font mapping is only applied to styles published in GeoServer.
Default projection¶
When publishing a layer without projection information, the default coordinate reference system is used.
Metadata¶
Tab metadata
Default values¶
Set the default contact, license and language for metadata. The default values will be used when Bridge publishes layers that have no values defined for these metadata fields.
Publish references to local resources¶
Select this checkbox to publish the local resource references in the metadata to the catalogue server.
Allow invalid metadata¶
Rule to determine what happens when the metadata is not valid according to the selected metadata schema in the catalog connection. Options 1) Always be published 2) Not to be published
Proxy¶
Tab proxy
Configure a proxy server if you want to use a proxy server that is different from the system proxy server.
Updates¶
Tab updates & support
Updates¶
> Check for updates¶
Click the button Check to check if there is a new version available. See Application Update.
> Automatic update check¶
By default enabled, disable to turn off automatic update checks.
Support¶
> Log file¶
Open the GeoCat Bridge log file in your default text editor.
> Verbose logging¶
Enabled by default. When this setting is enabled more detailed messages will be logged in the logfile. Enable this option if you experience errors in Bridge. You will need to restart ArcMap to apply the changes.
Contacts¶
Manage metadata contacts. These contacts are saved in the Bridge configuration file database. Contacts are used in the dataset metadata and service metadata. Think of the metadata and data contact in a metadata record on a dataset. When Bridge encounters a unknown contact in a metadata record, the new contact is added to the Bridge list of contacts
Contact form
Data licenses¶
Manage data license. Data licenses are used in dataset metadata to indicate under what conditions the dataset can be used. By default a number of open data licenses have been added to Bridge.
Note
Please ensure that you add your own data licenses through this panel. GeoCat does not take any responsibility or liability for erroneous use of data licenses.
Data license form
Configuration file¶
Bridge has a configuration file that can be used to configure a number of options. To use the Bridge configuration file, in the Bridge intstallation directory copy the bridge.config.template file to bridge.config. The default installation directory of Bridge is either C:\Program Files\GeoCat\Bridge 2 or C:\Program Files (x86)\GeoCat\Bridge 2 depending on whether the OS is 32 or 64 bits. Removing the bridge.config will restore the default configuration settings.
AddDownloadLinksMetadata¶
When a value is specified Bridge will add the a download link with the format of the value to the metadata. Bridge checks if the download link with that format is available on the server. Setting only works for publishing to GeoServer.
Allowed values:
- Comma separated list of formats, allowed values in list:
CSV,``GML2``,``GML3.1``,``GML3.2``,``GeoJSON``,``KML``,``Shapefile``,``geopackage``
Default value:
<add key="AddDownloadLinksMetadata" value=""/>
ArcLayerNameAsOWSTitle¶
Use the layername in TOC of ArcMap as the OWS layer/featuretype/coverage title in GeoServer/MapServer, instead of using the metadata title of the dataset of the layer.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="ArcLayerNameAsOWSTitle" value="False"/>
BasicAuthenticationGeoServer¶
Set Bridge to use basic authentication to connect to GeoServer. By default Bridge uses form authentication with a JSESSIONID cookie.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="BasicAuthenticationGeoServer" value="False"/>
CopyFontsMapServer¶
Copy fonts of symbology to MapServer on publication. Be aware that you need to have a valid license to use some proprietary fonts on your MapServer. For instance it is not allowed to use ESRI fonts on a server that is not running any licensed ESRI products.
When using an ftp service to copy the fonts to your server you will need to either:
- create an alias named
_bridge_fonts_in the home folder of the ftp user that points to the MapServer fonts folder (FileZilla Server on Windows) - create a directory named
_bridge_fonts_in the home folder of the ftp user and mount the MapServer fonts folder on it like this:
Creating a directory named _bridge_fonts_ is not required when copying the files to the local filesystem.
mkdir /mapserver/projects/_bridge_fonts_
mount --bind /mapserver/fonts /mapserver/projects/_bridge_fonts_
When copying of the files fails, no error message is displayed in the publish report afterwards, this will be improved in a later version. Check the log file for error messages on copying the fonts.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="CopyFontsMapServer" value="False"/>
CustomDownloadProtocols¶
Set specific protocol string for format specific download links, see AddDownloadLinksMetadata. Comma separated list of key value pair. Key and value should be separated by %. The key GML sets the download format for all GML formats (GML2,GML3.1,GML3.2).
Allowed keys: CSV,``GML``,``GML2``,``GML3.1``,``GML3.2``,``GeoJSON``,``KML``,``Shapefile``,``geopackage``,``geotiff``.
Example usage:
<add key="CustomDownloadProtocols" value="GeoJSON%JSON,KML%OGC:KML"/>
Default value:
<add key="CustomDownloadProtocols" value=""/>
DisableUpdater¶
Disable automatic checking for updates
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="DisableUpdater" value="False"/>
Expect100Continue¶
Adds HTTP header Expect: 100-Continue to all HTTP requests
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="Expect100Continue" value="True"/>
FileRasterByReference¶
Publish raster data by reference to GeoServer. Prevents uploading raster files to GeoServer, requires the raster files to be accessible from both ArcMap and GeoServer. When this option is enabled and additional configuration option “Map path” is shown in the GeoServer configuration panel. Supported file formats are GeoTiff,WorldImage, ECW and ImageMosaic.
Publish rasters by reference.
The map path option allows to configure a mapping between from the local path to the remote path. For instance when the raster data is available for ArcMap in D:\rasters and for GeoServer in Z:\rasters the value for local path is D:\ and the value for remote path is Z:\.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="FileRasterByReference" value="False"/>
FileVectorByReference¶
Publish shapefiles by reference to GeoServer. Prevents uploading vector files to GeoServer, requires the shapefiles to be accessible from both ArcMap and GeoServer. When this option is enabled and additional configuration option “Map path” is shown in the GeoServer configuration panel. See the FileRasterByReference option for a screenshot. Shapefile only, so does not work for any geodatabase (FGDB, PGDB, etc.)
The map path option allows to configure a mapping between from the local path to the remote path. For instance when the vector data is available for ArcMap in D:\vectors and for GeoServer in Z:\vectors the value for local path is D:\ and the value for remote path is Z:\.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="FileVectorByReference" value="False"/>
ForceGeoTiffDatastore¶
Always use a GeoTiff datastore when creating raster layers in GeoServer, instead of creating a WorldImage datastore when the raster file has world file. Should not be used when FileRasterByReference is not enabled. Other requirement is that GeoTiffs that are published should have set the projection authority in the projection string of the GeoTiff. The GeoTiff should not be georeferenced by a custom CRS. Check with GDALINFO tool if this is the case, see the gdal website for more information. Use the gdal_edit.py utility to set the projection authority in the projection string of the GeoTiff gdal_edit.py -a_srs EPSG:<CODE> <FILEPATH>.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="ForceGeoTiffDatastore" value="False"/>
ForceShapefile¶
Use Shapefile format even if the GeoPackage extension is installed in GeoServer.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="ForceShapefile" value="False"/>
HTTPUserAgent¶
Sets a user-agent string for all HTTP requests. Default value is an empty string. In case you need to specify a user-agent a recommended value is geocat-bridge.
Allowed values:
- Any string made out of the following character set [a-zA-Z0-9]
Default value:
<add key="HTTPUserAgent" value=""/>
KeepExistingDistOnPublication¶
On publication of metadata to catalogue keep all online resources referenced in the metadata. When set to False Bridge will remove all the online resources referenced in the metadata and only add the online resources for the current publication.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="KeepExistingDistOnPublication" value="False"/>
LayerGroupMode¶
Default mode for layer groups created in GeoServer, valid values are CONTAINER, SINGLE and NAMED.
Allowed values:
- CONTAINER
- SINGLE
- NAMED
Default value:
<add key="LayerGroupMode" value="CONTAINER"/>
LowerCasePostGIS¶
When set to true Bridge will create lower case tables in PostGIS with lowercase column names and create layers with lowercase layernames in OWS services in GeoServer. Recommended to set to True, default value is set to False for backwards compatibility.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="LowerCasePostGIS" value="False"/>
ManagedWorkspacesMode¶
When this option is turned on, Bridge will manage about the workspaces in GeoServer by enforcing a one to one relationship between ESRI map documents (.mxd or .lyr files) and workspaces. When publishing a mapdocument_a.mxd with layer layer_a and layer_b, bridge will create a new workspace mapdocument_a in GeoServer and publish both layers in this workspace. When necessary Bridge will also copy over the required datastore to the newly created workspace mapdocument_a.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="ManagedWorkspacesMode" value="False"/>
ManageReadonlyMetadata¶
When set to True Bridge will manage the metadata locally if the metadata of a layer is Read-Only. Bridge manages the metadata by creating an ISO 19139 document and saving it in the local configuration database.
Note that when multiple users publish metadata from the same layer from different machines they will end up publishing this layer as two different datasets in the catalogue. Because each Bridge installation will instantiate a new metadata document for this layer and save it to the local database.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="ManageReadonlyMetadata" value="False"/>
MapfileMAXSIZE¶
Set MAXSIZE for MapServer mapfile, when set to 0 Bridge will not specify MAXSIZE. In that case MapServer uses the default as MAXSIZE (2048px).
Allowed values:
- Any positive integer value
Default value:
<add key="MapfileMAXSIZE" value="2048"/>
MarginExtent¶
Sets a margin on the bounding box of the Mapfile or the bounding box of the layer (GeoServer). Value is a percentage of the layer or map extent.
Allowed values:
- Any positive decimal value
Default value:
<add key="MarginExtent" value="0.05"/>
OwsAccessConstraints¶
Set default value for access constraints in OWS capabilities document (GeoServer only), when empty Bridge will not configure this value for new workspaces and therefore the value from /rest/services/wms/settings.xml will configure this value.
Allowed values:
- Any string
Default value:
<add key="OwsAccessConstraints" value=""/>
OwsFees¶
Set default value for fees in OWS capabilities document (GeoServer only), when empty Bridge will not configure this value for new workspaces and therefore the value from /rest/services/wms/settings.xml will configure this value.
Allowed values:
- Any string
Default value:
<add key="OwsFees" value=""/>
ReverseWMSLayers¶
Reverse layers in WMS service workspace/mapfile. By default Bridge organises the layers in the WMS based on drawing order. So the top layer (in your ArcMap map project) will be the last layer in the WMS capabilities document. If you want the top layer (in your ArcMap map project) to be the first layer in the WMS capabilities document, set the ReverseWMSLayers configuration option to True.
Allowed values:
- True
- False
<add key="ReverseWMSLayers" value="False"/>
SymbolSizeFactor¶
Multiply symbol size for MapServer mapfile with this factor
Allowed values:
- Any decimal value (decimal separator “.”)
Default value:
<add key="SymbolSizeFactor" value="1.0"/>
TruncateFieldNameWhenPublishingOffline¶
Truncate field names when publishing offline
Allowed values:
- True
- False
Default value:
<add key="TruncateFieldNameWhenPublishingOffline" value="False"/>
Administrator configuration¶
The configuration and the server connections of Bridge are saved in a SQLite database in the local application data folder called arcgis_publisher.s3db. The local application data folder can be found under (substitute the USER with the actual user name): C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\GeoCat\Bridge 2.
This file can be used as a configuration file for deploying Bridge on a large number of machines. Simply configure Bridge on one machine and retrieve arcgis_publisher.s3db and use this file to configure other installations.
An empty configuration database can be found in the Bridge installation folder. The Bridge installation folder is typically located in C:\Program Files\GeoCat\Bridge 2 (32 bits OS) or C:\Program Files (x86)\GeoCat\Bridge 2 (64 bits OS). The empty database can be used to reset the existing configuration, by replacing the file in the local application data folder with the one from the installation folder.
Password Encryption¶
Note that the passwords for all the server configurations are encrypted inside the GeoCat Bridge configuration database.
License information¶
The configuration database also saves the license configuration. In case the other machines will not share the same license as the machine you are copying the configuration database from, you will need to edit the configuration database to remove the license information. A good SQLite client with a GUI for this is SQLiteBrowser.
The license information is located in the table “LicenseDetails”. If you want to remove the License Key from the table, just replace the current value with an empty string.