Basics

This is a short description of the basic elements of the EOxServer software architecture.

Architectural Layout

EOxServer is Python software that builds on a handful of external packages. Most of the description in the following sections is related to the structure of the Python code, but in this section we present the building blocks used for EOxServer.

For further information on the dependencies please refer to the /users/install document in the Users’ Guide.

Django

EOxServer is designed as a series of Django apps. It reuses the object-relational mapping Django provides as an abstraction layer for database access. Therefore, it is not bound to a specific database application, but can be run with different backends.

Database

Metadata and part of the EOxServer configuration is stored in a database. A handful of geospatially enabled database systems is supported, though we recommend either PostGIS or SpatiaLite.

MapServer

Many built-in functionalities rely on MapServer which EOxServer uses through its Python bindings to handle certain OGC Web Service requests.

GDAL/OGR

In some cases EOxServer uses the GDAL/OGR library for access to geospatial data directly (rather than through MapServer).