Dear Readers,

a quick post to spread the word about the Online GeoServer Bug Stomp which will take place this Friday, the 22nd of July 2016.

Developers as well as users from the GeoServer community will gather online to spend up to a full day (in their timezone) on tasks like:

• Reviewing JIRA Reports to make sure they are valid

• Fix bugs as we come across them

• Improved docs

• Test and report new bugs or close existing reports

The rules of engagement as well as a first rough list of participants can be found in this document; the event is an online gathering, people will be working from their place coordinating using the GeoServer Gitter channel with whomever will be online in their timezone.

If you feel like helping don’t be scared, jump onboard, read the rules of engagement say hi on the gitter channel (github login required) and help us make GeoServer even better.

If you cannot, don’t worry, we are going to try and make this event a monthly event.

Happy GeoServer to everybody!

The FOSS4G North America (NA) 2016 was held in North Carolina from 02 and 05th May. This year’s FOSS4G NA conference is yet another collaborative effort involving OSGeo and LocationTech. The conference provides opportunities for the FOSS4G community to learn, explore, share, and collaborate on the latest ideas and information.

If you can not attend the event, you can watch the videos of the presentations that were made available on YouTube Channel of FOSS4G NA.

Below is a list of presentations (in video) related to GeoServer:

• Vector Tiles with GeoServer and OpenLayers - David Blasby and Andreas Hocevar (Boundless)

• Bring Your Maps into Focus: Processing Raster Data for Online Use - Megan Slemons and Jay Varner (Emory University Library)

• Uncovering the Ancient Mound Builders Using Open Data and FOSS Software - Calvin Hamilton

• High Performance GeoServer Clusters - Derek Kern (Ubisense, Inc.)

• Image Mosaics & Automation - Jonathan Meyer (Applied Information Sciences)

Some talks were not available in video, but you can download the presentations in PDF format.

• Introduction to GeoServer - Mike Pumphrey and Andreas Hocevar (Boundless)

• GeoSHAPE: FOSS GIS Collaboration Platform with Web & Mobile Clients - Syrus Mesdaghi (Prominent Edge) and Daniel Berry (Boundless)

• Using Open Source Web GIS for Analysis of Transnational Illicit Trafficking - Eunjung Elle Lim (University of Maryland)

• Terra Populus: Free Human-Environment Spatial Data - David Haynes

The GeoServer team is pleased to announce the release of GeoServer 2.8.4. Download bundles are provided (bin, war, dmg and exe) along with documentation and extensions.

GeoServer 2.8.4 is the latest stable release of GeoServer and is recommended for production deployment. This release is made in conjunction with GeoTools 14.4. Thanks to all contributors. Fixes and new functionality include:

• Security fix for a reflected XSS vulnerability

• Fix for potential out of memory state when rendering lots of very small tiles

• Fix for an embedded GeoFence issue that caused user settings to be lost after a restart

• Improved ImageMosaic creation and update speed for databases with many tables

• Monitoring extension fixes for RemoteUser logging and monitoring hibernate extension causing startup issues to GeoServer

• CSS styling extension related fix: A bug in CSS to SLD conversion led in some cases to performance issues with the generated SLD

• PDF printing related fixes to properly render SLD “shape://horline” symbol, prevent invalid polygon generation and avoid potential out of memory state or very large files when handling large outputs with dense hatch fills

• And much more, see all the 24 tickets resolved in the release notes

Thanks to Alessandro Parma (GeoSolutions) and Andrea Aime (GeoSolutions) for this release.

About GeoServer 2.8

Articles, blog posts and presentations:

• State of GeoServer 2015 (FOSS4G)

• XEE Vunerability (GeoServer)

• Remote Execution Vulnerability (GeoServer)

• Z ordering features within and across feature types and layers (User Manual)

• JAI-Ext, the Open Source replacement for Oracle JAI (GeoSolutions)

• Customizable arrow in GeoServer (GeoSolutions)

• PostGIS Curve Support (GeoSolutions)

• Improved NetCDF/GRIB support in GeoServer (GeoSolutions)

• Initial GeoServer 2.8.0 release announcement  (GeoServer)

_Guest post by Fernando Quadro: _FOSS4G is the annual global event of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). Although widely recognized as the largest technical open source geospatial conference we call FOSS4G an “event” because it is far more than “just” a conference. A typical FOSS4G will include regular presentations and talks, but also code sprints, birds of a feather sessions, workshops, topic talks and of course social events spanning all nine days.

The list of talks that will be presented are already published, here are the talks about GeoServer:

• Creating Stunning Maps in GeoServer: mastering SLD and CSS styles - Andrea Aime (GeoSolutions)

• GeoServer Styling Hints and Tips for Prettier Maps - Ian Turton (Astun Technology)

• Enterprise Single Sign-On in GeoServer: where do we stand? - Francesco Bartoli (Geobeyond Srl)

• GeoServer in Production: we do it, here is how! - Simone Giannecchini and Andrea Aime (GeoSolutions)

• Mastering Security with GeoServer and GeoFence - Alessio Fabiani and Simone Giannecchini (GeoSolutions)

• Serving earth observation data with GeoServer: addressing real world requirements - Simone Giannecchini and Andrea Aime (GeoSolutions)

• Crunching Data In GeoServer: Mastering Rendering Transformations, WPS Processes And SQL Views - Andrea Aime (GeoSolutions)

• State of GeoServer - Jody Garnett (Boundless) and Andrea Aime (GeoSolutions)

• Vector Tiles with GeoServer and OpenLayers - David Blasby and Andreas Hocevar (Boundless)

• Open Source strategies in a federal office - migrating from closed software to OS development - Dr. Marco Lechner (German Federal Office for Radiation Protection)

• Still waiting for someone else to do it: Writing documentation for an open source project - Mike Pumphrey (Boundless)

• State of GeoGig - Gabriel Roldán and Tyler Battle (Boundless)

• Using Open Source Tools to Visualize Spatial Activity Drone Restrictions - Aäron Trippaers

• Bringing benthic data to the surface - moving Marine Recorder into an open source spatial database - James Hutchison (Joint Nature Conservation Committee)

• Real-time large format maps for passenger information on railway disruptions - Mario Härtwig (geOps)

• Collect & Manage Geospatial Data Edits with GeoSHAPE -  Syrus Mesdaghi (Prominent Edge LLC)

• Urban SDG Measuring System using the Open Geospatial Data of the International Organizations - Junyoug Choi (Spatial Information office), Hyunsoo Kim (CITUS. CO), Jaeseong Ahn (Kyungil University)

The workshops are include great GeoServer content:

• Web mapping with OGC services and GeoServer: an introduction - Andrea Aime and Simone Giannecchini (GeoSolutions)

• Beyond GeoServer Basics - Mike Pumphrey and Morgan Thompson (Boundless)

• GeoServer Styling Workshop - Jody Garnett, Kevin Smith and Torben Barsballe (Boundless)

• I have data with TIME, ELEVATION and other dimensions: what can GeoServer do for me? - Simone Giannecchini and Andrea Aime (GeoSolutions)

• Enterprise class deployment for GeoServer and GeoWebcache: Optimizing performances and robustness - Daniel Koch,  Nils Bühner and Andre Henn (terrestris GmbH & Co. KG) and Simone Giannecchini (GeoSolutions)

FOSS4G 2016 takes place between August 24th and 27th in Bonn Germany. For more information see the video below:

The GeoServer team is overjoyed to announce the GeoServer 2.9.0 release. Downloads are available (zip, war, dmg and exe) along with docs and extensions. We will be working with OSGeo to provide a signed DMG download shortly.

This release is made by Jody Garnett (Boundless) and Devon Tucker (Boundless) with help from Andrea Aime and Alessandro Parma (GeoSolutions) in conjunction with the GeoWebCache 1.9.0 and GeoTools 15.0 releases.

Highlights

As this is a major release GeoServer 2.9.0 includes a number of important changes, including both new features and compatibility requirements.

Java 8 Required

This release requires the use of Java 8, and is compatible with both Oracle JDK and Open JDK.

Servlet 3 Required

Due to internal upgrades GeoServer now requires a Servlet 3 compatible application server.

• The standalone downloads for Mac, Windows and Linux has been update to Jetty 9.2.13

• Tomcat users will be required to upgrade to Tomcat 7 or newer (for those doing a WAR install)

Web Administration

A number of improvements and clarifications have been made to the web administration application:

• The Layers and Layer Preview has been restructured to lead with layer title in the first column, layer workspace and name combined into the second column. By popular request these pages now use layer (rather than resource) actions with “Add a new layer”, and “Remove selected layers”.

• You can now generate layer bounds from either the data bounds or from the spatial reference system bounds. This is handy for dynamic layers that will have content added to them over time.

• Styles can now include an optional legend graphic for use in WMS GetCapabilities.

• Global Settings have been grouped into a section for configuration of web services and a section for internal settings (affecting the GeoServer application as a whole).

• Image Processing and Raster Access are clearly presented with controls for memory and CPU use. Previously these screens were expressed in terms of the internal components used.

User Guide

The user guide has been restructured:

• The document layout has been reduced to a smaller number of sections

  • Data management covers vector, raster, database and web services along with common settings

  • Services (WMS, WFS, WCS, WPS, CSW) have been gathered into a single section for consistency, even though WPS is an optional install.

• The duplication between service description and application configuration has been resolved:

  • Each Service is described, both in terms of functionality, alongside details on how the service is configured

  • The Web administration interface section remains focused on on application configuration, linking to to service configuration above (to prevent duplication).

• Tutorials have been gathered into a single location.

Resource REST API

A new feature for GeoServer 2.9 is the ability to manage resources (icons, fonts, configuration files) via the REST API.  This approach works with both the default file based GeoServer configuration and JDBCConfig community module.

• **GET: rest/resource/styles/grass_fill.png? **

• GET: rest/resource/styles/grass_fill.png?operation=metadata&format=json

  {  ”ResourceMetadata”: { “name”: “grass_fill.png”, “parent”: { “path”: “/styles”, “link”: { “href”: “http://localhost:8080/geoserver/rest/resource/styles”, “rel”: “alternate”, “type”: “application/json” } }, “lastModified”: “2016-05-27 19:31:30.0 UTC”, “type”: “resource” } }

About/Status REST API

The about REST API already reports on the jars installed and the version of high-level components. GeoServer 2.9 includes the addition of about/status which reports not only what components are installed, but if they are correctly functioning. We will be working with this endpoint in subsequent releases to better reporting on GeoServer installation status.

• GET rest/about/status

Offset line support

Symbology Encoding 1.0 offset line is now supported, along with a vendor extension to use the same in SLD 1.0, and CSS support via the “stroke-offset” property. Here are a couple of screenshots of the effects that can be achieved by using offset line.

UTFGrid support in WMS and WMTS

GeoServer WMS and WMTS now support UTFGrid as an output format, to get fast and rich feature info on the client side. The WMS output has been tested with OpenLayers 2 by applying this patch, while not officially tested it should also work with OpenLayers 3 and Leaflet using the appropriate URL templates against the WMTS output.

Improved WPS aggregation process with group by

The Aggregate process has been improved to support group-by against any data source, with the ability to turn the execution in an efficient SQL with group by query, if the underlying data source is a database. In case of group-by a rich JSON output is generated, than can then be used to drive client side libraries such as D3 to generate nice charts for your users:

{
  "GroupByAttributes": [ "groupingAttribute" ],
  "AggregationResults": [
    [ "Class1", 18 ],
    [ "Class2", 1 ],
    [ "Class3", 3 ],
    [ "Class4", 3 ]
  ],
  "AggregationFunctions": [ "Count" ],
  "AggregationAttribute": "countingAttribute"
}

Vector masking support for GDAL based formats

All GDAL based formats now support vector masks to cut NODATA areas away from rendering, similar to what image mosaic already supported. Here is a sample, cutting away some areas from a JPEG 2000 image (the format adds compression artifacts at the border, thus the input transparent color cannot be used to achieve a similar effect).

Internal Upgrades

Internally GeoServer has received a number of important upgrades:

• Update to Spring 4: The upgrade to Spring 4 is responsible for the delay of the GeoServer 2.9 and was required for Java 8 compatibility. This upgrade was far reaching with both  the REST-API and Security integration requiring a concerted quality assurance effort on geoserver-devel. This upgrade was technically challenging resulting in a delay to the 2.9 release schedule. Thanks to everyone who helped out, beta testers, and Justin, Andrea and Niels for tackling the harder issues.

• Upgrade to JAI-EXT to 1.0.9: To enable JAI-EXT use startup parameter org.geotools.coverage.jaiext.enabled=true (for more information see Image Processing in the user guide).

• **Upgrade to Wicket 7: **The web administration application has been updated to use the latest Wicket library, thanks to a larger team effort. We would like to thank the sponsors of the Wicket 7 upgrade sprint: OSGeo, Boundless, Vivid Solutions, How 2 Map, San Jose Water Company, Transient, Geobeyond (with in-kind sponsors GeoSolutions, CCRi, Astun Technology and Voyager).

• The GeoServer default data directory has been updated with titles and descriptions for many layers (to better take advantage of the user interface improvements). The previously disabled Pk50095 layer (shown below) is now enabled by default.

About GeoServer 2.9

Articles, docs, blog posts and presentations:

• Internals upgrade to spring-4 for Java 8 compatibility (User Guide)

• GeoServer code sprint success and wicket migration code sprint (GeoServer Blog)

• GeoServer Plugin for QGIS (Boundless)

• Simplify complex feature mappings setup with HALE (GeoSolutions)

• REST management of Resources (User Guide)

##