Nominatim/docs/Import_and_update.md

Importing a new database

The following instructions explain how to create a Nominatim database from an OSM planet file and how to keep the database up to date. It is assumed that you have already sucessfully installed the Nominatim software itself, if not return to the installation page.

Configuration setup in settings/local.php

There are lots of configuration settings you can tweak. Have a look at settings/settings.php for a full list. Most should have a sensible default. If you plan to import a large dataset (e.g. Europe, North America, planet), you should also enable flatnode storage of node locations. With this setting enabled, node coordinates are stored in a simple file instead of the database. This will save you import time and disk storage. Add to your settings/local.php:

@define('CONST_Osm2pgsql_Flatnode_File', '/path/to/flatnode.file');

Replace the second part with a suitable path on your system and make sure the directory exists. There should be at least 35GB of free space.

Downloading additional data

Wikipedia rankings

Wikipedia can be used as an optional auxiliary data source to help indicate the importance of osm features. Nominatim will work without this information but it will improve the quality of the results if this is installed. This data is available as a binary download:

cd $NOMINATIM_SOURCE_DIR/data
wget http://www.nominatim.org/data/wikipedia_article.sql.bin
wget http://www.nominatim.org/data/wikipedia_redirect.sql.bin

Combined the 2 files are around 1.5GB and add around 30GB to the install size of nominatim. They also increase the install time by an hour or so.

UK postcodes

Nominatim can use postcodes from an external source to improve searches that involve a UK postcode. This data can be optionally downloaded:

cd $NOMINATIM_SOURCE_DIR/data
wget http://www.nominatim.org/data/gb_postcode_data.sql.gz

Initial import of the data

Important: first try the import with a small excerpt, for example from Geofabrik.

Download the data to import and load the data with the following command:

./utils/setup.php --osm-file <your data file> --all [--osm2pgsql-cache 28000] 2>&1 | tee setup.log

The --osm2pgsql-cache parameter is optional but strongly recommended for planet imports. It sets the node cache size for the osm2pgsql import part (see -C parameter in osm2pgsql help). 28GB are recommended for a full planet import, for excerpts you can use less. Adapt to your available RAM to avoid swapping, never give more than 2/3 of RAM to osm2pgsql.

Loading additional datasets

The following commands will create additional entries for POI searches:

./utils/specialphrases.php --wiki-import > specialphrases.sql
psql -d nominatim -f specialphrases.sql

Installing Tiger housenumber data for the US

Nominatim is able to use the official TIGER address set to complement the OSM housenumber data in the US. You can add TIGER data to your own Nominatim instance by following these steps:

1. Install the GDAL library and python bindings

   • Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install python-gdal
   • CentOS: sudo yum install gdal-python

2. Get the TIGER 2015 data. You will need the EDGES files (3,234 zip files, 11GB total). Choose one of the two sources:

   wget -r ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2015/EDGES/
   wget -r ftp://mirror1.shellbot.com/census/geo/tiger/TIGER2015/EDGES/
   

   The first one is the original source, the second a considerably faster mirror.

3. Convert the data into SQL statements (stored in data/tiger):

   ./utils/imports.php --parse-tiger <tiger edge data directory>
   

4. Import the data into your Nominatim database:

   ./utils/setup.php --import-tiger-data
   

5. Enable use of the Tiger data in your settings/local.php by adding:

   @define('CONST_Use_US_Tiger_Data', true);
   

6. Apply the new settings:

   ./utils/setup.php --create-functions --enable-diff-updates --create-partition-functions

Be warned that the import can take a very long time, especially if you import all of the US. The entire US adds about 10GB to your database.

Updates

There are many different possibilities to update your Nominatim database. The following section describes how to keep it up-to-date with osmosis. For a list of other methods see the output of ./utils/update.php --help.

Installing the newest version of osmosis

The version of osmosis that comes with your distribution should be sufficient in most cases.

If you want to install it by hand, get the latest version from the Osmosis website. Then tell Nominatim to use this version by adding the following line to your settings/local.php:

@define('CONST_Osmosis_Binary', '/usr/local/bin/osmosis');

Setting up the update process

Next the update needs to be initialised. By default Nominatim is configured to update using the global minutely diffs.

If you want a different update source you will need to add some settings to settings/local.php. For example, to use the daily country extracts diffs for Ireland from geofabrik add the following:

// base URL of the replication service
@define('CONST_Replication_Url', 'http://download.geofabrik.de/europe/ireland-and-northern-ireland-updates');
// Process each update separately, osmosis cannot merge multiple updates
@define('CONST_Replication_MaxInterval', '40000');
// How often upstream publishes diffs
@define('CONST_Replication_Update_Interval', '86400');
// How long to sleep if no update found yet
@define('CONST_Replication_Recheck_Interval', '900');

Delete any existing settings/configuration.txt, then run the following command to create the osmosis configuration files:

./utils/setup.php --osmosis-init

Enabling hierarchical updates

When a place is updated in the database, all places that contain this place in their address need to be updated as well. These hierarchical updates are disabled by default because they slow down the initial import. Enable them with the following command:

./utils/setup.php --create-functions --enable-diff-updates

Updating Nominatim

The following command will keep your database constantly up to date:

./utils/update.php --import-osmosis-all --no-npi

If you have imported multiple country extracts and want to keep them up-to-date, have a look at the script in issue #60.