Note: these installation instructions are also available in executable form for use with vagrant under vagrant/Install-on-Ubuntu-22.sh.
Installing the Required Software
These instructions expect that you have a freshly installed Ubuntu 22.04.
Make sure all packages are up-to-date by running:
sudo apt update -qq
Now you can install all packages needed for Nominatim:
sudo apt install -y php-cgi
sudo apt install -y build-essential cmake g++ libboost-dev libboost-system-dev \
libboost-filesystem-dev libexpat1-dev zlib1g-dev \
libbz2-dev libpq-dev \
postgresql-server-dev-14 postgresql-14-postgis-3 \
postgresql-contrib-14 postgresql-14-postgis-3-scripts \
php-cli php-pgsql php-intl libicu-dev python3-dotenv \
python3-psycopg2 python3-psutil python3-jinja2 \
python3-icu python3-datrie
System Configuration
The following steps are meant to configure a fresh Ubuntu installation for use with Nominatim. You may skip some of the steps if you have your OS already configured.
Creating Dedicated User Accounts
Nominatim will run as a global service on your machine. It is therefore best to install it under its own separate user account. In the following we assume this user is called nominatim and the installation will be in /srv/nominatim. To create the user and directory run:
sudo useradd -d /srv/nominatim -s /bin/bash -m nominatim
You may find a more suitable location if you wish.
To be able to copy and paste instructions from this manual, export user name and home directory now like this:
export USERNAME=nominatim
export USERHOME=/srv/nominatim
Never, ever run the installation as a root user. You have been warned.
Make sure that system servers can read from the home directory:
chmod a+x $USERHOME
Setting up PostgreSQL
Tune the postgresql configuration, which is located in
/etc/postgresql/14/main/postgresql.conf. See section Postgres Tuning in
the installation page
for the parameters to change.
Restart the postgresql service after updating this config file.
sudo systemctl restart postgresql
Finally, we need to add two postgres users: one for the user that does the import and another for the webserver which should access the database for reading only:
sudo -u postgres createuser -s $USERNAME
sudo -u postgres createuser www-data
Installing Nominatim
Building and Configuration
Get the source code from Github and change into the source directory
cd $USERHOME
wget https://nominatim.org/release/Nominatim-4.1.1.tar.bz2
tar xf Nominatim-4.1.1.tar.bz2
The code must be built in a separate directory. Create this directory, then configure and build Nominatim in there:
mkdir $USERHOME/build
cd $USERHOME/build
cmake $USERHOME/Nominatim-4.1.1
make
sudo make install
Nominatim is now ready to use. You can continue with importing a database from OSM data. If you want to set up a webserver first, continue reading.
Setting up a webserver
The webserver should serve the php scripts from the website directory of your project directory. This directory needs to exist when being configured. Therefore set up a project directory and create a website directory:
mkdir $USERHOME/nominatim-project
mkdir $USERHOME/nominatim-project/website
The import process will populate the directory later.
Option 1: Using Apache
Apache has a PHP module that can be used to serve Nominatim. To install them run:
sudo apt install -y apache2 libapache2-mod-php
You need to create an alias to the website directory in your apache configuration. Add a separate nominatim configuration to your webserver:
sudo tee /etc/apache2/conf-available/nominatim.conf << EOFAPACHECONF
<Directory "$USERHOME/nominatim-project/website">
Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AddType text/html .php
DirectoryIndex search.php
Require all granted
</Directory>
Alias /nominatim $USERHOME/nominatim-project/website
EOFAPACHECONF
Then enable the configuration and restart apache
sudo a2enconf nominatim
sudo systemctl restart apache2
The Nominatim API is now available at http://localhost/nominatim/.
Option 2: Using nginx
Nginx has no native support for php scripts. You need to set up php-fpm for this purpose. First install nginx and php-fpm:
sudo apt install -y nginx php-fpm
You need to configure php-fpm to listen on a Unix socket.
sudo tee /etc/php/8.1/fpm/pool.d/www.conf << EOF_PHP_FPM_CONF
[www]
; Replace the tcp listener and add the unix socket
listen = /var/run/php8.1-fpm.sock
; Ensure that the daemon runs as the correct user
listen.owner = www-data
listen.group = www-data
listen.mode = 0666
; Unix user of FPM processes
user = www-data
group = www-data
; Choose process manager type (static, dynamic, ondemand)
pm = ondemand
pm.max_children = 5
EOF_PHP_FPM_CONF
Then create a Nginx configuration to forward http requests to that socket.
sudo tee /etc/nginx/sites-available/default << EOF_NGINX_CONF
server {
listen 80 default_server;
listen [::]:80 default_server;
root $USERHOME/nominatim-project/website;
index search.php index.html;
location / {
try_files \$uri \$uri/ @php;
}
location @php {
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME "\$document_root\$uri.php";
fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED "\$document_root\$uri.php";
fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING \$args;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php8.1-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location ~ [^/]\.php(/|$) {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.*)$;
if (!-f \$document_root\$fastcgi_script_name) {
return 404;
}
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php7.4-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index search.php;
include fastcgi.conf;
}
}
EOF_NGINX_CONF
If you have some errors, make sure that php8.1-fpm.sock is well under /var/run/ and not under /var/run/php. Otherwise change the Nginx configuration to /var/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock.
Enable the configuration and restart Nginx
sudo systemctl restart php8.1-fpm nginx
The Nominatim API is now available at http://localhost/.