Thomas Rudin 0b5357d197 default to file based tile cache

2018-07-06 08:42:28 +02:00

3.8 KiB

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Minetest tileserver

Near realtime tileserver for minetest

Overview

A standalone java-based tile-server for minetest. Renders the mapblocks on-demand as an interactive map and displays the current players. As players interact with the map the changed MapBlocks get re-rendered and updated in the web-client (near-realtime, 20 seconds default)

The resulting tiles are cached in a database and served to the client if unchanged.

Development state

Active, Beta-Testing with one Production-Instance (see Demo)
Please file issues/requests in the github issue-tracker

Demo

See: https://pandorabox.io/map/#-1830.125/426.5/11

Compatibility

Requirements:

Postgresql Database (for tile-cache and blocks)
Java runtime (8+)
Modern machine with enough (2GB+) RAM and CPU

Testing was done on a fairly new minetest version (0.4.17) There will be failures in the MapBlock Parser if the version found is not met (older minetest-versions).

Please create an issue with minetest-version and MapBlock info in the bug-tracker if that happens to you.

Installing

Download the jar in the releases section
Backup your minetest database (THIS IS IMPORTANT!!) as the db schema gets updated (see How it works)
Configure the database connection according to the Configuration section if they are not default value
Start the server with: java -jar tileserver.jar

Configuring

The application drwas its configuration from the tileserver.properties file. Key and values should be separated by a = (see Example config)

Example config

Example for a setup with server-name myhost:

minetest.db.url=jdbc:postgresql://myhost:5432/postgres
tile.db.url=jdbc:postgresql://myhost:5432/tiles

Configuration parameters

http.port

Port to expose http server on

Default: 8080

tiles.maxy

Max y value for blocks to render (in Mapblocks)

Default: 10 (Equals 160 blocks)

tiles.miny

Min y value for blocks to render (in Mapblocks)

Default: -1 (Equals -16 blocks)

tilerenderer.updateinterval

Update interval to check for new tiles (in seconds)

Default: 20

player.updateinterval

Update interval to check for Player movements (in seconds)

Default: 2

minetest.db.url

Url for DB Connection (jdbc connection string)

Default: jdbc:postgresql://127.0.0.1:5432/minetest

minetest.db.username

Username for DB Connection

Default: sa

minetest.db.password

Username for DB Connection

Default:

minetest.db.driver

Driver for DB Connection (only psql supported for now)

Default: org.postgresql.Driver

How it works

The blocks table in the minetest database gets a new column for the modification time. Triggers for insert and update on the table ensure the time gets updated after each change:

alter table blocks add column mtime bigint not null default 0;
create index BLOCKS_TIME on blocks(mtime);

create or replace function on_blocks_change() returns trigger as
$BODY$
BEGIN
    NEW.mtime = floor(EXTRACT(EPOCH from now()) * 1000);
    return NEW;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql;

create trigger blocks_update
 before insert or update
 on blocks
 for each row
 execute procedure on_blocks_change();

These changes get applied atomatically with the initial DB-Migration, so please create a backup before starting the Tileserver!!

With this information and the modification-time on the created tiles the periodically scheduled Updater-Job removes the stale Tiles in the tile-cache.

On the next access (browsing on the web-interface to the coordinates) the Tile gets re-rendered.

Building