up-to-date, [Advanced installations section](Advanced-Installations.md)
contains instructions to set up and update multiple country extracts.
-#### Continuous updates
-
-This is the easiest mode. Simply run the replication command without any
-parameters:
-
- nominatim replication
-
-The update application keeps running forever and retrieves and applies
-new updates from the server as they are published.
-
-You can run this command as a simple systemd service. Create a service
-description like that in `/etc/systemd/system/nominatim-updates.service`:
-
-```
-[Unit]
-Description=Continuous updates of Nominatim
-
-[Service]
-WorkingDirectory=/srv/nominatim
-ExecStart=nominatim replication
-StandardOutput=append:/var/log/nominatim-updates.log
-StandardError=append:/var/log/nominatim-updates.error.log
-User=nominatim
-Group=nominatim
-Type=simple
-
-[Install]
-WantedBy=multi-user.target
-```
-
-Replace the `WorkingDirectory` with your project directory. Also adapt user
-and group names as required.
-
-Now activate the service and start the updates:
-
-```
-sudo systemctl daemon-reload
-sudo systemctl enable nominatim-updates
-sudo systemctl start nominatim-updates
-```
-
#### One-time mode
When the `--once` parameter is given, then Nominatim will download exactly one
until the next expected update and only then attempt to download the next batch.
The one-time mode is particularly useful if you want to run updates continuously
-but need to schedule other work in between updates. For example, the main
-service at osm.org uses it, to regularly recompute postcodes -- a process that
-must not be run while updates are in progress. Its update script
-looks like this:
+but need to schedule other work in between updates. For example, you might
+want to regularly recompute postcodes -- a process that
+must not be run while updates are in progress. An update script refreshing
+postcodes regularly might look like this:
```sh
#!/bin/bash
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
-And then a similar service definition: `/etc/systemd/system/nominatim-updates.service`:
+`OnUnitActiveSec` defines how often the individual update command is run.
+
+Then add a service definition for the timer in `/etc/systemd/system/nominatim-updates.service`:
```
[Unit]
Description=Single updates of Nominatim
[Service]
-WorkingDirectory=/srv/nominatim
-ExecStart=nominatim replication --once
-StandardOutput=append:/var/log/nominatim-updates.log
-StandardError=append:/var/log/nominatim-updates.error.log
+WorkingDirectory=/srv/nominatim-project
+ExecStart=/srv/nominatim-venv/bin/nominatim replication --once
+StandardOutput=journald
+StandardError=inherit
User=nominatim
Group=nominatim
Type=simple
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
-Replace the `WorkingDirectory` with your project directory. Also adapt user and
-group names as required. `OnUnitActiveSec` defines how often the individual
-update command is run.
+Replace the `WorkingDirectory` with your project directory. `ExecStart` points
+to the nominatim binary that was installed in your virtualenv earlier.
+Finally, you might need to adapt user and group names as required.
Now activate the service and start the updates:
sudo systemctl start nominatim-updates.timer
```
-You can stop future data updates, while allowing any current, in-progress
+You can stop future data updates while allowing any current, in-progress
update steps to finish, by running `sudo systemctl stop
nominatim-updates.timer` and waiting until `nominatim-updates.service` isn't
-running (`sudo systemctl is-active nominatim-updates.service`). Current output
-from the update can be seen like above (`systemctl status
-nominatim-updates.service`).
+running (`sudo systemctl is-active nominatim-updates.service`).
+
+To check the output from the update process, use journalctl: `journalctl -u
+nominatim-updates.service`
#### Catch-up mode
still respects the parameter `NOMINATIM_REPLICATION_MAX_DIFF`. It downloads and
applies the changes in appropriate batches until all is done.
-The catch-up mode is foremost useful to bring the database up to speed after the
+The catch-up mode is foremost useful to bring the database up to date after the
initial import. Give that the service usually is not in production at this
point, you can temporarily be a bit more generous with the batch size and
number of threads you use for the updates by running catch-up like this:
```
-cd /srv/nominatim
+cd /srv/nominatim-project
NOMINATIM_REPLICATION_MAX_DIFF=5000 nominatim replication --catch-up --threads 15
```
When running scheduled updates with catch-up, it is a good idea to choose
a replication source with an update frequency that is an order of magnitude
lower. For example, if you want to update once a day, use an hourly updated
- source. This makes sure that you don't miss an entire day of updates when
+ source. This ensures that you don't miss an entire day of updates when
the source is unexpectedly late to publish its update.
If you want to use the source with the same update frequency (e.g. a daily
updated source with daily updates), use the
- continuous update mode. It ensures to re-request the newest update until it
- is published.
+ once mode together with a frequently run systemd script as described above.
+ It ensures to re-request the newest update until they have been published.
+
+
+#### Continuous updates
+
+!!! danger
+ This mode is no longer recommended to use and will removed in future
+ releases. systemd is much better
+ suited for running regular updates. Please refer to the setup
+ instructions for running one-time mode with systemd above.
+
+This is the easiest mode. Simply run the replication command without any
+parameters:
+
+ nominatim replication
+
+The update application keeps running forever and retrieves and applies
+new updates from the server as they are published.