Seeding and truncating through the REST API¶

The REST API for cache seeding and truncation provides a RESTful interface through which clients can programatically add or remove tiles from the cache, on a layer by layer basis.

Operations¶

/rest/seed/<layer>.<format>

Method	Action	Return Code	Formats
GET	Return the status of the seeding threads	200	JSON
POST	Issue a seed or truncate task request	200	XML, JSON
PUT		405
DELETE		405

Representations:

XML
JSON

Seed/Truncate cURL Examples¶

The examples in this section use the cURL utility, which is a handy command line tool for executing HTTP requests and transferring files. Though cURL is used the examples apply to any HTTP-capable tool or library.

Seeding XML example¶

Sample request:

curl -v -u geowebcache:secured -XPOST -H "Content-type: text/xml" -d '<seedRequest><name>nurc:Arc_Sample</name><srs><number>4326</number></srs><zoomStart>1</zoomStart><zoomStop>12</zoomStop><format>image/png</format><type>truncate</type><threadCount>2</threadCount></seedRequest>'  "http://localhost:8080/geowebcache/rest/seed/nurc:Arc_Sample.xml"

Sample response:

* About to connect() to localhost port 8080 (#0)
*   Trying 127.0.0.1... connected
* Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 8080 (#0)
* Server auth using Basic with user 'admin'
> POST /geoserver/gwc/rest/seed/nurc:Arc_Sample.xml HTTP/1.1
> Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46Z2Vvc2VydmVy
> User-Agent: curl/7.21.3 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.21.3 OpenSSL/0.9.8o zlib/1.2.3.4 libidn/1.18
> Host: localhost:8080
> Accept: */*
> Content-type: text/xml
> Content-Length: 209
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Here’s a more complete xml fragment for a seed request, including parameter filters:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<seedRequest>
  <name>topp:states</name>
  <bounds>
    <coords>
      <double>-2495667.977678598</double>
      <double>-2223677.196231552</double>
      <double>3291070.6104286816</double>
      <double>959189.3312465074</double>
    </coords>
  </bounds>

  <!-- These are listed on http://localhost:8080/geowebcache/demo -->
  <gridSetId>EPSG:2163</gridSetId>
  <zoomStart>0</zoomStart>
  <!-- This will be reduced to 3, since the layer is only defined for 0-3 -->
  <zoomStop>2</zoomStop>
  <format>image/png</format>

  <!-- type can be * seed (add tiles) * reseed (replace tiles) * truncate (remove tiles) -->
  <type>truncate</type>

  <!-- Number of seeding threads to run in parallel.
       If type == truncate only one thread will be used regardless of this parameter -->
  <threadCount>1</threadCount>
  <!-- Parameter filters -->
  <parameters>
    <entry>
      <string>STYLES</string>
      <string>pophatch</string>
    </entry>
    <entry>
      <string>CQL_FILTER</string>
      <string>TOTPOP > 10000</string>
    </entry>
  </parameters>
</seedRequest>

Truncate JSON example¶

Sample request:

curl -v -u geowebcache:secured -XPOST -H "Content-type: application/json" -d "{'seedRequest':{'name':'topp:states','bounds':{'coords':{ 'double':['-124.0','22.0','66.0','72.0']}},'srs':{'number':4326},'zoomStart':1,'zoomStop':12,'format':'image\/png','type':'truncate','threadCount':4}}}"  "http://localhost:8080/geowebcache/rest/seed/nurc:Arc_Sample.json"

Sample response:

* About to connect() to localhost port 8080 (#0)
*   Trying 127.0.0.1... connected
* Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 8080 (#0)
* Server auth using Basic with user 'admin'
> POST /geoserver/gwc/rest/seed/nurc:Arc_Sample.json HTTP/1.1
> Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46Z2Vvc2VydmVy
> User-Agent: curl/7.21.3 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.21.3 OpenSSL/0.9.8o zlib/1.2.3.4 libidn/1.18
> Host: localhost:8080
> Accept: */*
> Content-type: application/json
> Content-Length: 205
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:09:21 GMT
< Server: Noelios-Restlet-Engine/1.0..8
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
<
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
* Closing connection #0

Querying the running tasks¶

Operations¶

/rest/seed[/<layer>].json

Method	Action	Return Code	Formats
GET	Get the global or per layer state of running and pending tasks	200	JSON
POST		405
PUT		405
DELETE		405

Getting the current state of the seeding threads¶

Sending a GET reques to the /rest/seed.json resource returns a list of pending (scheduled) and running tasks for all the layers.

Sending a GET reques to the /rest/seed/<layer name>.json resource returns a list of pending (scheduled) and running tasks for that specific layer.

The returned content is a JSON array of the form:

{"long-array-array":[[<long>,<long>,<long>,<long>,<long>],...]}

If there are no pending or running tasks, the returned array is empty:

{"long-array-array":[]}

The returned array of arrays contains one array per seeding/truncate Task. The meaning of each long value in each thread array is: [tiles processed, total # of tiles to process, expected remaining time in seconds, Task ID, Task status]. The meaning of the Task status field is: -1 = ABORTED, 0 = PENDING, 1 = RUNNING, 2 = DONE.

Sample request:

curl -u <user>:<password> -v -XGET http://localhost:8080/geowebcache/rest/seed/topp:states.json

Sample response:

{"long-array-array":[[17888,44739250,18319,1,1],[17744,44739250,18468,2,1],[16608,44739250,19733,3,0],[0,1000,1000,4,1]]}

In the sample response above tasks 1 and 2 for the topp:states layer are running, and tasks 3 and 4 are in pending state waiting for an available thread:

Sample request:

curl -u <user>:<password> -XGET http://localhost:8080/geoserver/gwc/rest/seed.json

Sample response:

{"long-array-array":[[2240,327426,1564,2,1],[2368,327426,1477,3,1],[2272,327426,1541,4,1],[2176,327426,1611,5,1],[1056,15954794690,79320691,6,1],[1088,15954794690,76987729,7,1],[1040,15954794690,80541010,8,1],[1104,15954794690,75871965,9,1]]}

The sample response response above contains the list of tasks for all the layers.

Terminating running tasks¶

Operations¶

/rest/seed[/<layer>]

Method	Action	Return Code
GET		405
POST	Issue a kill running and/or pending tasks request	200
PUT		405
DELETE		405

A POST request to the /rest/seed resource terminates pending and/or running tasks for any layer.

A POST request to the /rest/seed/<layer name> resource terminates pending and/or running tasks for that specific layer.

In order to indicate whether to terminate pending and/or running tasks, the form parameter "kill_all" needs to be specified, with one of the following values: all, running, pending (for backwards compatibility, the kill_all parameter value 1 is also accepted and equivalent to running).

For example: curl -d "kill_all=all" <host>/rest/seed kills both pending and running tasks for any layer, curl -d "kill_all=all" <host>/rest/seed/topp:states kills only pending tasks for the topp:states layer, and so on.

The following request terminates all running seed and truncate tasks.

Sample request:

curl -v -u geowebcache:secured -d "kill_all=all"  "http://localhost:8080/geowebcache/rest/seed"

Sample response:

* About to connect() to localhost port 8080 (#0)
*   Trying 127.0.0.1... connected
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:23:04 GMT
< Server: Noelios-Restlet-Engine/1.0..8
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
< Content-Length: 426
<
<html>
...
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
* Closing connection #0