# Importing the 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 successfully installed the Nominatim
-software itself, if not return to the [installation page](Installation.md).
+from an OSM planet file. It is assumed that you have already successfully
+installed the Nominatim software itself and the `nominatim` tool can be found
+in your `PATH`. If this is not the case, return to the
+[installation page](Installation.md).
-## Configuration setup in `.env`
+## Creating the project directory
-The Nominatim server can be customized via a `.env` in the build directory.
-This is a file in [dotenv](https://symfony.com/doc/4.3/components/dotenv.html) format
-which looks the same as variable settings in a standard shell environment.
+Before you start the import, you should create a project directory for your
+new database installation. This directory receives all data that is related
+to a single Nominatim setup: configuration, extra data, etc. Create a project
+directory apart from the Nominatim software and change into the directory:
+
+```
+mkdir ~/nominatim-planet
+cd ~/nominatim-planet
+```
+
+In the following, we refer to the project directory as `$PROJECT_DIR`. To be
+able to copy&paste instructions, you can export the appropriate variable:
+
+```
+export PROJECT_DIR=~/nominatim-planet
+```
+
+The Nominatim tool assumes per default that the current working directory is
+the project directory but you may explicitly state a different directory using
+the `--project-dir` parameter. The following instructions assume that you run
+all commands from the project directory.
+
+!!! tip "Migration Tip"
+
+ Nominatim used to be run directly from the build directory until version 3.6.
+ Essentially, the build directory functioned as the project directory
+ for the database installation. This setup still works and can be useful for
+ development purposes. It is not recommended anymore for production setups.
+ Create a project directory that is separate from the Nominatim software.
+
+### Configuration setup in `.env`
+
+The Nominatim server can be customized via an `.env` configuration file in the
+project directory. This is a file in [dotenv](https://github.com/theskumar/python-dotenv)
+format which looks the same as variable settings in a standard shell environment.
You can also set the same configuration via environment variables. All
settings have a `NOMINATIM_` prefix to avoid conflicts with other environment
variables.
-There are lots of configuration settings you can tweak. Have a look
-at `settings/env.default` for a full list. Most should have a sensible default.
+There are lots of configuration settings you can tweak. A full reference
+can be found in the chapter [Configuration Settings](../customize/Settings.md).
+Most should have a sensible default.
#### Flatnode files
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:
+This data is available as a binary download. Put it into your project directory:
- cd $NOMINATIM_SOURCE_DIR/data
+ cd $PROJECT_DIR
wget https://www.nominatim.org/data/wikimedia-importance.sql.gz
The file is about 400MB and adds around 4GB to the Nominatim database.
!!! tip
If you forgot to download the wikipedia rankings, you can also add
importances after the import. Download the files, then run
- `./nominatim refresh --wiki-data --importance`.
+ `nominatim refresh --wiki-data --importance`. Updating importances for
+ a planet can take a couple of hours.
+
+### External postcodes
-### Great Britain, USA postcodes
+Nominatim can use postcodes from an external source to improve searching with
+postcodes. We provide precomputed postcodes sets for the US (using TIGER data)
+and the UK (using the [CodePoint OpenData set](https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/CodePointOpen).
+This data can be optionally downloaded into the project directory:
-Nominatim can use postcodes from an external source to improve searches that
-involve a GB or US postcode. This data can be optionally downloaded:
+ cd $PROJECT_DIR
+ wget https://www.nominatim.org/data/gb_postcodes.csv.gz
+ wget https://www.nominatim.org/data/us_postcodes.csv.gz
- cd $NOMINATIM_SOURCE_DIR/data
- wget https://www.nominatim.org/data/gb_postcode_data.sql.gz
- wget https://www.nominatim.org/data/us_postcode_data.sql.gz
+You can also add your own custom postcode sources, see
+[Customization of postcodes](../customize/Postcodes.md).
## Choosing the data to import
are a good way to reduce the database size and import time.
[Geofabrik](https://download.geofabrik.de) offers extracts for most countries.
They even have daily updates which can be used with the update process described
-[in the next section](../Update). There are also
+[in the next section](Update.md). There are also
[other providers for extracts](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm#Downloading).
Please be aware that some extracts are not cut exactly along the country
You can also drop the dynamic part later using the following command:
```
-./nominatim freeze
+nominatim freeze
```
Note that you still need to provide for sufficient disk space for the initial
import. So this option is particularly interesting if you plan to transfer the
database or reuse the space later.
+!!! warning
+ The datastructure for updates are also required when adding additional data
+ after the import, for example [TIGER housenumber data](../customize/Tiger.md).
+ If you plan to use those, you must not use the `--no-updates` parameter.
+ Do a normal import, add the external data and once you are done with
+ everything run `nominatim freeze`.
+
+
### Reverse-only Imports
If you only want to use the Nominatim database for reverse lookups or
if you plan to use the installation only for exports to a
-[photon](https://photon.komoot.de/) database, then you can set up a database
+[photon](https://photon.komoot.io/) database, then you can set up a database
without search indexes. Add `--reverse-only` to your setup command above.
This saves about 5% of disk space.
boundaries, places, streets, addresses and POI data. There are also other
import styles available which only read selected data:
-* **settings/import-admin.style**
+* **admin**
Only import administrative boundaries and places.
-* **settings/import-street.style**
+* **street**
Like the admin style but also adds streets.
-* **settings/import-address.style**
+* **address**
Import all data necessary to compute addresses down to house number level.
-* **settings/import-full.style**
+* **full**
Default style that also includes points of interest.
-* **settings/import-extratags.style**
+* **extratags**
Like the full style but also adds most of the OSM tags into the extratags
column.
extratags | 54h | 650 GB | 340 GB
You can also customize the styles further.
-A [description of the style format](../develop/Import.md#configuring-the-import)
-can be found in the development section.
+A [description of the style format](../customize/Import-Styles.md)
+can be found in the customization guide.
## Initial import of the data
[Geofabrik](https://download.geofabrik.de).
Download the data to import. Then issue the following command
-from the **build directory** to start the import:
+from the **project directory** to start the import:
```sh
-./nominatim import --osm-file <data file> 2>&1 | tee setup.log
+nominatim import --osm-file <data file> 2>&1 | tee setup.log
```
+The **project directory** is the one that you have set up at the beginning.
+See [creating the project directory](#creating-the-project-directory).
+
### Notes on full planet imports
Even on a perfectly configured machine
in terms of RAM usage. osm2pgsql and PostgreSQL are running in parallel at
this point. PostgreSQL blocks at least the part of RAM that has been configured
with the `shared_buffers` parameter during
-[PostgreSQL tuning](Installation#postgresql-tuning)
+[PostgreSQL tuning](Installation.md#postgresql-tuning)
and needs some memory on top of that. osm2pgsql needs at least 2GB of RAM for
its internal data structures, potentially more when it has to process very large
relations. In addition it needs to maintain a cache for node locations. The size
above. If the system starts swapping or you are getting out-of-memory errors,
reduce the cache size or even consider using a flatnode file.
-### Verify the import
-Run this script to verify all required tables and indices got created successfully.
+### Testing the installation
+
+Run this script to verify that all required tables and indices got created
+successfully.
```sh
-./nominatim check-database
+nominatim admin --check-database
```
-### Testing the installation
-
Now you can try out your installation by running:
```sh
-make serve
+nominatim serve
```
This runs a small test server normally used for development. You can use it
`http://localhost:8088/status.php` and you should see the message `OK`.
You can also run a search query, e.g. `http://localhost:8088/search.php?q=Berlin`.
+Note that search query is not supported for reverse-only imports. You can run a
+reverse query, e.g. `http://localhost:8088/reverse.php?lat=27.1750090510034&lon=78.04209025`.
+
To run Nominatim via webservers like Apache or nginx, please read the
[Deployment chapter](Deployment.md).
-## Tuning the database
+## Adding search through category phrases
-Accurate word frequency information for search terms helps PostgreSQL's query
-planner to make the right decisions. Recomputing them can improve the performance
-of forward geocoding in particular under high load. To recompute word counts run:
+If you want to be able to search for places by their type through
+[special phrases](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim/Special_Phrases)
+you also need to import these key phrases like this:
```sh
-./nominatim refresh --word-counts
+nominatim special-phrases --import-from-wiki
```
-This will take a couple of hours for a full planet installation. You can
-also defer that step to a later point in time when you realise that
-performance becomes an issue. Just make sure that updates are stopped before
-running this function.
-
-If you want to be able to search for places by their type through
-[special key phrases](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim/Special_Phrases)
-you also need to enable these key phrases like this:
-
- ./nominatim special-phrases --from-wiki > specialphrases.sql
- psql -d nominatim -f specialphrases.sql
-
Note that this command downloads the phrases from the wiki link above. You
need internet access for the step.
-
-## Installing Tiger housenumber data for the US
-
-Nominatim is able to use the official [TIGER](https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html)
-address set to complement the OSM house number data in the US. You can add
-TIGER data to your own Nominatim instance by following these steps. The
-entire US adds about 10GB to your database.
-
- 1. Get preprocessed TIGER 2019 data and unpack it into the
- data directory in your Nominatim sources:
-
- wget https://nominatim.org/data/tiger2019-nominatim-preprocessed.tar.gz
- tar xf tiger2019-nominatim-preprocessed.tar.gz
-
- 2. Import the data into your Nominatim database:
-
- ./nominatim add-data --tiger-data tiger
-
- 3. Enable use of the Tiger data in your `.env` by adding:
-
- NOMINATIM_USE_US_TIGER_DATA=yes
-
- 4. Apply the new settings:
-
-```sh
- ./nominatim refresh --functions
-```
-
-
-See the [developer's guide](../develop/data-sources.md#us-census-tiger) for more
-information on how the data got preprocessed.
-
+You can also import special phrases from a csv file, for more
+information please see the [Customization part](../customize/Special-Phrases.md).