Chapter 1, GIS Fundamentals, introduces you to GIS concepts. It guides you through spatial data types and maps. You will discover how spatial information is stored and how to set up a map. You may want to skip this chapter if you already have a solid background in GIS.

Chapter 2, Getting Started with GeoServer, guides you through setting up your first GeoServer instance. It shows you, step by step, how to download the most recent version of the software and its requirements, that is, Java and a servlet container. For each component, a detailed description of how to install it is included.

Chapter 3, Exploring the Administrative Interface, covers GeoServer's Web Administration interface. It explains how to log in and access each section. You will familiarize yourself with data configuration following a common workflow that starts by adding data to GeoServer and guides you through to publication. Included in this chapter are screen captures that define the main areas of the program and menu items--all of which is very helpful when accessing the interface for the first time.

Chapter 4, Adding Your Data, demonstrates how you can configure data in GeoServer. The examples included will show you how to add and publish shapefiles and PostGIS tables, two of the most common formats, which are also natively supported by GeoServer. The extensions for Oracle is also discussed.

Chapter 5, Accessing Layers, guides you through data publication and covers in detail all output types offered by GeoServer for your data. Raster formats such as JPEG and PNG are discussed for maps, while vector formats such as GeoRSS and GEOJSON are explained for vector output. We will also explore OpenLayers, a JavaScript framework that GeoServer includes in its output format when you want to serve your data as an application.

Chapter 6, Styling Your Layers, explains how to apply styles to your layers. Styles let you render your data according to attributes, in order to build pretty maps. SLD's syntax, the standard for data rendering, will be explained in detail, with examples for different geometry types such as point, polyline, and polygons. The chapter also illustrates how to build scale-dependent symbology and how to compose different rendering in a group, to mimic a map in WMS.

Chapter 7, Creating Simple Maps, describes how to build client applications with the JavaScript framework. JavaScript is a powerful and widespread language and, unsurprisingly, it is one of the best choices when developing a web application. We will build some sample maps using Google Maps API, OpenLayers, and Leaflet.

Chapter 8, Performance and Caching, covers the use of integrated GeoWebCache. Caching maps is a common strategy with map servers; it allows you to serve pretty complex maps without running out of resources. The GeoServer 2.X release introduces a great change: you can fully administer the integrated GeoWebCache from the web admin interface. In the examples included, you will configure cache with different strategies, optimizing performance, or disk usage.

Chapter 9, Automating Tasks - GeoServer REST Interface, explains how to control the GeoServer configuration from a remote location through the REST interface. This may prove a great help if you have to administer a GeoServer site without the possibility of using the web admin interface, or if you want to automatize, in an external procedure, some admin tasks. The included examples will let you add data, configure styles and layers, and publish them. All the operations are demonstrated with Python and curl syntaxes.

Chapter 10, Securing GeoServer Before Production, covers the GeoServer security module. It first discusses general configuration for security, that is, password encryption, and then the security model is explained. A case history shows you how to create a configuration where different users are in charge of administration, editing, and publication tasks.

Chapter 11, Tuning GeoServer in a Production Environment , explains the advanced considerations for running a successful GeoServer site. It covers Java Runtime tuning and data and services optimization. Finally, a high availability configuration is detailed, with instructions for configuring a balanced GeoServer installation.

Chapter 12, Going Further - Getting Help and Troubleshooting , shows you how to access community tools and help for going further than what you will learn from this book. It also covers a concise introduction to other data publication standards implemented in GeoServer, WCS, and WFS. With WCS and WFS, you can serve vector and raster data to clients that not only need to show a map but have to perform some processing on the data.

Installation and download instructions are described for all the software packages you will need. You just need to have access to a computer with an online connection for downloading packages. The instructions cover both Linux and Windows operating systems, so you may select the one you prefer. All the software used in this book is freely available, most of the time as an Open Source project. Hardware requirements for development purposes are not very high. A relatively modern laptop or desktop will be enough for running examples. The source code and data used in this book are freely available on the Packt website.

If you are going to use maps on your site, incorporate spatial data in a desktop application, or you are just curious about web mapping, this book offers you a fast-paced and practical introduction. Particularly if you need to develop a web application supporting maps, you will find that GeoServer is one of the best solutions you can choose. Analysts will discover how GIS works and how it can be integrated into complex systems. System administrators may also find this book useful for planning installation, tuning, and maintenance.

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, and user input are shown as follows: "Under the subdirectory structure of C:\chapter8-benchmark\src\main\java\com\packt is the MyBenchmark.java file."

A block of code is set as follows:

  http://localhost:8080/geoserver/web/wicket/bookmarkable/
     org.geoserver.wms.web.data.StyleEditPage?  
     6&name=PopulatedPlacesBlueLabeled 

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

 <display-name>GeoServer</display-name>

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "The Encryption section lets you hide web admin parameters."

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