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Hi all

tl;dr please help me spec out a VM for running OSM tile server planet.

I have built an OSM tile server on a VM with Ubuntu 12.04. I followed the instructions at switch2osm "Building a tile server from packages". This was a trial run, and it works fine, but I had some issues. In particular, I couldn't get openstreetmap-carto working. It was suggested to me to try using an upgraded version of Mapnik, e.g. the one found in Ubuntu 14.04.

Well, now I have the opportunity to build a tile server "for real" from scratch. I can spec my own VM including which distro to install. I'm thinking of going with Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty Tar" and following the same instructions as before.

My question is then, what should I ask for in the VM including OS, #cores, RAM, disk, etc. My other question is whether the "Building a tile server from packages" on switch2osm is the best way to do it.

Thanks, Harold Ship

asked 01 Feb '15, 08:59

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haroldship
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Disk performance is essential - you should definitely make sure you have about 600 GB of SSD capacity for the database volume, and be sure that you don't ruin SSD performance e.g. by using unsuitable controllers or a bad virtualization layer (apparently you can easily ruin disk performance by checking the wrong boxes or selecting the wrong drivers in some VM environments). In addition to the SSD storage for the database you'll need a bit of standard disk storage for the pre-rendered tiles, just a couple 100 GB. Other than that, Ubuntu 14.04, a modern quad-core CPU, and 32 GB of RAM will serve you well. More cores will increase performance but just a little, and 16 GB of RAM would still work but a bit slower. The switch2osm instructions are good - of course the recommendations given there generic and whether they are "the best way to do it" depends very much on the expected usage profile of your tile server.

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answered 01 Feb '15, 10:23

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
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accept rate: 23%

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Thanks Frederik. This is what I asked for. Let's hope they give it to me :)

(02 Feb '15, 06:59) haroldship
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question asked: 01 Feb '15, 08:59

question was seen: 4,105 times

last updated: 02 Feb '15, 06:59

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum