How to Install TileServer PHP on POP! OS Latest

In this tutorial, we will show you step by step how to install TileServer PHP on POP! OS Latest.

Step 1: Installing Required Dependencies

Before we start with the installation process of TileServer PHP, we need to make sure that all the required dependencies are installed. Open the terminal and type the following command to install the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install git apache2 php7.2 php7.2-common php7.2-cli php7.2-curl php7.2-json php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xml php7.2-zip

After running this command, it will install all the necessary packages required for the installation of TileServer PHP.

Step 2: Downloading TileServer PHP

Once all the dependencies are installed, we can proceed with the installation of TileServer PHP. First, we need to download the code from GitHub by using the following command:

git clone -b stable https://github.com/maptiler/tileserver-php.git /var/www/html/tileserver-php

Step 3: Configuring TileServer

After downloading, we need to configure the TileServer PHP. For that, go to the directory where the downloaded files are stored, and rename the config.sample.json file to config.json by the following command:

cd /var/www/html/tileserver-php
cp config.sample.json config.json

Now, we need to edit the config.json file to configure the server according to our needs by using any text editor. For example, we can use the nano editor for this purpose:

sudo nano config.json

Once we open the config.json file, we can edit the configuration according to our needs. For example, we can change the following options:

{
  "name": "My TileServer",
  "description": "My custom tile server",
  "options": {
    "path": "/data",
    "mimetypes": "pbf application/x-protobuf,application/octet-stream",
    "port": 8080,
    "host": "0.0.0.0"
  },
  "data": [
    {
      "mbtiles": "/path/to/mbtiles/myfile.mbtiles",
      "name": "My Tiles",
      "description": "My custom tiles",
      "attribution": "My custom attribution"
    }
  ]
}

In this example, we changed the name of the server, the path where the tiles are located, and the data source from where the tiles are loaded.

Step 4: Running TileServer PHP

After configuring TileServer PHP, we can now run the server to start serving the tiles. We can start the server by using the following command:

cd /var/www/html/tileserver-php
php -S localhost:8080

Alternatively, we can configure Apache to run TileServer PHP by creating a new virtual host configuration file. To do that, create a new file named tileserver-php.conf in the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory by using the following command:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/tileserver-php.conf

After that, we need to add the following code in this file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  DocumentRoot /var/www/html/tileserver-php/public
  
  <Directory /var/www/html/tileserver-php/public>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  </Directory>
  
  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Finally, enable this configuration by using the following command:

sudo a2ensite tileserver-php

Restart the Apache web server to take effect the changes:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Now, TileServer PHP is ready to use.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to install TileServer PHP and configure it according to your needs. TileServer PHP is a great tool for serving map tiles on your own server, and it is easy to get started with.

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