I installed mapserver 6.4.1 using OSGeo4W and I created a mbtiles file for a small region of OpenStreetMap (loaded into PostGIS) using TileMill.
My questions are:
a –
Do I have MapCache? MapServer site says that MapCache is part of MapServer but I did not understand if I need to install it separately or is it 'in' the MapServer.
b –
If MapCache is not installed automatically (I assume it isn't, but I hope it is:)
How do I install it? I cannot find compiled version for Windows and I tried to build it myself but ran into problems of missing libraries etc.
c –
How do I use it to serve the mbtiles?
I managed to use MapServer via ../cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=…
but how do I put MapCache in the middle between the client (will be OpenLayers) and MapServer? (as I understood the cache server sits between the client and the server), or do I still talk to MapServer and it talks with MapCache?
Best Answer
a) No, you do not have Mapcache, it is an Apache module that must be installed separately
b) Current MapCache version is effectively not available for us Windows users. However, a bit older version is included in MS4W 3.0.4-dev version that can be found from http://maptools.org/ms4w/index.phtml?page=downloads.html. That package contains MapServer version 6.1-dev and you must stay with it. If you update Mapserver to higher version then Mapcache stops working.
As far as I know compiling MapCache+MapServer for Windows is tricky. Gateway Geomatics probably knows how to do it if you are ready to use some money http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/
c) OpenLayers will talk to Mapcache and if the requested tile is missing, Mapcache talks with Mapserver, acquires the tile and adds it into the cache. If the cache is fully seeded then Mapserver will not get new requests ever.