# 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 settings/local.php
+## Creating the project directory
-The Nominatim server can be customized via the file `settings/local.php`
-in the build directory. Note that this is a PHP file, so it must always
-start like this:
+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:
- <?php
+```
+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`
-without any leading spaces.
+The Nominatim server can be customized via a `.env` 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/default.php` for a full list. Most should have a sensible default.
+at `settings/env.default` for a full list. Most should have a sensible default.
#### Flatnode files
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`:
+Add to your `.env`:
- @define('CONST_Osm2pgsql_Flatnode_File', '/path/to/flatnode.file');
+ NOMINATIM_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 75GB of free space.
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
- `./utils/setup.php --import-wikipedia-articles`
- and `./utils/update.php --recompute-importance`.
+ `nominatim refresh --wiki-data --importance`. Updating importances for
+ a planet can take a couple of hours.
### Great Britain, USA postcodes
Nominatim can use postcodes from an external source to improve searches that
-involve a GB or US postcode. This data can be optionally downloaded:
+involve a GB or US postcode. This data can be optionally downloaded into the
+project directory:
- cd $NOMINATIM_SOURCE_DIR/data
+ cd $PROJECT_DIR
wget https://www.nominatim.org/data/gb_postcode_data.sql.gz
wget https://www.nominatim.org/data/us_postcode_data.sql.gz
In its default setup Nominatim is configured to import the full OSM data
set for the entire planet. Such a setup requires a powerful machine with
-at least 64GB of RAM and around 800GB of SSD hard disks. Depending on your
+at least 64GB of RAM and around 900GB of SSD hard disks. Depending on your
use case there are various ways to reduce the amount of data imported. This
section discusses these methods. They can also be combined.
About half of the data in Nominatim's database is not really used for serving
the API. It is only there to allow the data to be updated from the latest
changes from OSM. For many uses these dynamic updates are not really required.
-If you don't plan to apply updates, the dynamic part of the database can be
-safely dropped using the following command:
+If you don't plan to apply updates, you can run the import with the
+`--no-updates` parameter. This will drop the dynamic part of the database as
+soon as it is not required anymore.
+
+You can also drop the dynamic part later using the following command:
```
-./utils/setup.php --drop
+nominatim freeze
```
Note that you still need to provide for sufficient disk space for the initial
Like the full style but also adds most of the OSM tags into the extratags
column.
-The style can be changed with the configuration `CONST_Import_Style`.
+The style can be changed with the configuration `NOMINATIM_IMPORT_STYLE`.
To give you an idea of the impact of using the different styles, the table
below gives rough estimates of the final database size after import of a
style | Import time | DB size | after drop
----------|--------------|------------|------------
admin | 4h | 215 GB | 20 GB
-street | 42h | 400 GB | 180 GB
-address | 59h | 500 GB | 260 GB
-full | 80h | 575 GB | 300 GB
-extratags | 80h | 585 GB | 310 GB
+street | 22h | 440 GB | 185 GB
+address | 36h | 545 GB | 260 GB
+full | 54h | 640 GB | 330 GB
+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)
from the **build directory** to start the import:
```sh
-./utils/setup.php --osm-file <data file> --all 2>&1 | tee setup.log
+nominatim import --osm-file <data file> 2>&1 | tee setup.log
```
### Notes on full planet imports
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.
-```sh
-./utils/check_import_finished.php
-```
+### Testing the installation
-### Setting up the website
-
-Run the following command to set up the configuration file for the API frontend
-`settings/settings-frontend.php`. These settings are used in website/*.php files.
+Run this script to verify all required tables and indices got created successfully.
```sh
-./utils/setup.php --setup-website
+nominatim admin --check-database
```
-!!! Note
- This step is not necessary if you use `--all` option while setting up the DB.
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
of forward geocoding in particular under high load. To recompute word counts run:
```sh
-./utils/update.php --recompute-word-counts
+nominatim refresh --word-counts
```
This will take a couple of hours for a full planet installation. You can
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:
+you also need to import these key phrases like this:
- ./utils/specialphrases.php --wiki-import > specialphrases.sql
- psql -d nominatim -f specialphrases.sql
+ nominatim special-phrases --import-from-wiki
Note that this command downloads the phrases from the wiki link above. You
need internet access for the step.
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:
+ 1. Get preprocessed TIGER 2020 data and unpack it into your project
+ directory:
- cd Nominatim/data
- wget https://nominatim.org/data/tiger2019-nominatim-preprocessed.tar.gz
- tar xf tiger2019-nominatim-preprocessed.tar.gz
+ cd $PROJECT_DIR
+ wget https://nominatim.org/data/tiger2020-nominatim-preprocessed.tar.gz
+ tar xf tiger2020-nominatim-preprocessed.tar.gz
2. Import the data into your Nominatim database:
- ./utils/setup.php --import-tiger-data
+ nominatim add-data --tiger-data tiger
- 3. Enable use of the Tiger data in your `settings/local.php` by adding:
+ 3. Enable use of the Tiger data in your `.env` by adding:
- @define('CONST_Use_US_Tiger_Data', true);
+ echo NOMINATIM_USE_US_TIGER_DATA=yes >> .env
4. Apply the new settings:
-```sh
- ./utils/setup.php --create-functions --enable-diff-updates --create-partition-functions
-```
+ nominatim refresh --functions
See the [developer's guide](../develop/data-sources.md#us-census-tiger) for more
projects / nominatim.git / blobdiff