tile-block

a simplest-possible mbtiles-based http/2 vector tile server

how to use

$ git clone git@github.com:hfu/tile-block.git
$ cd tile-block
$ openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:tile-block -out private.key 2048
$ openssl rsa -in private.key -pubout -out public.key -passin pass:tile-block
$ openssl req -new -key private.key -out server.csr
$ openssl x509 -req -days 365 -signkey private.key < server.csr > server.crt
$ npm install
$ mkdir mbtiles
$ cp /somedirectory/somewhere.mbtiles mbtiles
$ cp -r htdocs/washington htdocs/somewhere
$ vi htdocs/somewhere/index.html
$ vi htdocs/somewhere/style.json
$ node tile-block
$ open https://localhost:3776/somewhere/

You can change the port number by editing config/default.hjson. Yet you can also change the port number by the command line parameter. That will override the config settiong.

$ node tile-block 9999 # this will run the server at port 9999 regardless the config.

purpose of this code

1. to serve vector tiles from mbtiles and to host related static files.
2. basically for development or evaluation; number of potential users < 1000.
3. to perform moderately; faster than http serving static tiles on CIFS.

some specifications

1. The main program is tile-block.js.
2. tile-block.js talks http/2. As in 'how to use', you need to have private.key and server.crt. Otherwise you can modify tile-block.js to use plain http. See commented part of tile-block.js.
3. tile-block.js scans mbtiles files under mbtiles directory, establishng read-only connection to them.
4. tile-block.js serves vector tiles from /zxy/{t}/{z}/{x}/{y} where {t} is the filename of the mbtiles file e.g., tiles from mbtiles/somewhere.mbtiles will be served through /zxy/somewhere/{z}/{x}/{y}. There is no extension used.
5. Vector tiles are served gzipped with Content-Encoding: gzip, without checking Accept-Encoding.
6. Static files under htdocs directory are served under /. The intent of this is to serve index.html, style.json and other related files so that we will not face CORS issues.
7. For everything including bugs, please refer to tile-block.js.

working with Let's Encrypt

You can work with the certificate from Let's Encrypt like the following.

spdy.createServer({
  key: fs.readFileSync('/etc/letsencrypt/live/vectortiles.xyz/privkey.pem'), 
  cert: fs.readFileSync('/etc/letsencrypt/live/vectortiles.xyz/fullchain.pem'),
  ca: fs.readFileSync('/etc/letsencrypt/live/vectortiles.xyz/chain.pem')
}, app).listen(port, () => { })

CONTRIBUTE.md things

forks, issues, pull requests are welcome!