Node mbtiles server
What is MBTiles
MBtiles is a file format based on the SQL lite database. It's purpouse is to provide rendered rasters to maps online. This files usally have the file ending of *.mbt or *.mbtile
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MBTiles
About
This project is a simple MBtiles server based on the PHP server made by bmcbride.
Dependencies
SQL lite can be installed with npm install
Setup
To setup this server there are a few values one can change.
port Will spesify what port you want node to listen for HTTP trafic, can also be done with cli -p.
databases Is the most important, here you will have to add the mbtiles databases you have avalible. This takes a javascript object with the key beeing what you want referenced in the url as the alias. ski: { filePath: "ski.mbt" } multiple databases can be added. Here are ski the alias and ski.mbt the tile database.
mode here you can set what URL format you want to use, pretty or argument.
This server suports two modes, pretty and argument. This is for simple change of server if the PHP server has previously been implemented. The server is designed in such a way that even with the link pointing to a php file it will serve the files.
Pretty mode: http://example.com/alias/{z}/{x}/{y}
Arument mode: http://example.com?db=alias&z={z}&x={x}&y={y}
To use HTTPS you will have to ether addapt the program or use a Nginx reverse proxy.
Using
Starting the server can be done with node main.js -p [port nr] it is also recommended to use a deamon/process manager like PM2. PM2 will help you keep the service online at all times, restart in case of faliure and on reboot.
Performance
Tested on the same computer against the PHP server by bmcbride it can provide about 240% more tiles a second, almost 2.5x. Also worth noting is that pretty mode is faster then argument mode, the exact speed depends on the system but in this system it is about 20% slower in argument mode.