Updating the Database

There are many different ways to update your Nominatim database. The following section describes how to keep it up-to-date using an online replication service for OpenStreetMap data For a list of other methods to add or update data see the output of nominatim add-data --help.

Important

If you have configured a flatnode file for the import, then you need to keep this flatnode file around for updates.

Installing the newest version of Pyosmium

It is recommended to install Pyosmium via pip. Make sure to use python3. Run (as the same user who will later run the updates):

pip3 install --user osmium

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 .env. For example, to use the daily country extracts diffs for Ireland from Geofabrik add the following:

# base URL of the replication service
NOMINATIM_REPLICATION_URL="https://download.geofabrik.de/europe/ireland-and-northern-ireland-updates"
# How often upstream publishes diffs
NOMINATIM_REPLICATION_UPDATE_INTERVAL=86400
# How long to sleep if no update found yet
NOMINATIM_REPLICATION_RECHECK_INTERVAL=900

To set up the update process now run the following command:

nominatim replication --init

It outputs the date where updates will start. Recheck that this date is what you expect.

The replication --init command needs to be rerun whenever the replication service is changed.

Updating Nominatim

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

nominatim replication

If you have imported multiple country extracts and want to keep them up-to-date, Advanced installations section contains instructions to set up and update multiple country extracts.