🗺️ OSM - self host the entire planet 🌎 in ~30 minutes 🚀

simple mbtiles server

SETUP - TL;DR

mkdir osm
wget --continue -O osm/planet.mbtiles https://nx93856.your-storageshare.de/public.php/dav/files/apP4zEacCwqPfWd/planet.mbtiles
wget --continue -O osm/contours.mbtiles https://nx93856.your-storageshare.de/public.php/dav/files/apP4zEacCwqPfWd/contours_90m-Z11-Z13_30m-Z14.mbtiles
podman run -ti --rm -p 9000:9000 --name sms -v "$(pwd)/osm/:/data/" registry.gitlab.com/markuman/sms:latest
firefox http://localhost:9000

requirements:

• podman (or docker)
• 100 GB storage is required (1 core and 512MB memory are sufficient)
• optional 315 GB storage is required for contour lines

notes:

• "~30 minutes" depends on your bandwidth ...and the hidrive performance of ionos.

credits

• https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler is used to generate the planet.mbtiles file
• https://github.com/uktrade/mbtiles-s3-server is the origin code-base of my sms project

Usage

nextcloud GpxPod

1. Deploy the container/service behind a webproxy (caddy, nginx, traefik,...you name it.) to get a valid SSL certificate.
2. Goto GpxPod Settings -> Tile Servers
   • Type: Vector
   • Server address: https://<YOUR_SMS_SERVICE_DEPLOYMENT>/v1/styles/osm-bright-gl-style@1.0.0/style.json?fonts=fonts-gl@1.0.0&tiles=mytiles@1.0.0

URL Parameter

You can add coordinates and Zoomlevel.

https://maps.osuv.de/?lat=48.1374&lng=11.5752&zoom=9

Reverse Geolocation / Photon Integration

• sms supports photon reverse geocoding server.

Just set -e PHOTONSERVER="https://photon.osuv.de" for your sms Container.

This also enables the geocode and reverse_geocode MCP tools; without it they are not registered at all.

Two consumers, possibly two URLs

PHOTONSERVER is substituted into index.html at startup, so the browser talks to Photon directly with that URL — it has to be publicly reachable.

The MCP tools, on the other hand, call Photon from inside the container. If both run in podman/docker, the public hostname often resolves to a LAN address the container network cannot route to (split-horizon DNS), and you get Connection refused. Changing PHOTONSERVER is not the fix: that would break the frontend.

Use PHOTONSERVER_INTERNAL for the server-side path instead:

podman network create osm

podman run -d --rm --network osm --name photon \
  -e UPDATE_STRATEGY=DISABLED \
  -p 8888:2322 \
  -v /home/m/osm/photon/:/photon/data \
  docker.io/rtuszik/photon-docker:2.1.1

podman run -ti --rm --network osm --name sms \
  -p 9000:9000 \
  -e PHOTONSERVER="https://photon.osuv.de" \
  -e PHOTONSERVER_INTERNAL="http://photon:2322" \
  -v /home/m/osm/sms/:/data/ \
  localhost/sms:dev

If PHOTONSERVER_INTERNAL is unset, server-side calls fall back to PHOTONSERVER, which is the right thing when both are reachable from everywhere (single host, no container network in between).

Configuration

Tilesets are configured through numbered environment variable groups (MBTILES__1__*, MBTILES__2__*, …):

HELP WANTED

• Improve Style
  • special for Nextcloud GxpPod
  • provide more style? remove some?

planet.mbtiles

My provided planet.mbtiles is generated by using https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler
I just followed this tutorial: https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler/blob/main/PLANET.md

contours.mbtiles

Contours will be displayed if a file called contours.mbtiles is places next to planet.mbtiles.
There are two different contours files provided. 90m resolution in Zoom Level 11 to 14 and 90m resolution in Zoom Level 11 to 13 with 30m resolution in Zoom Level 14.

GLO-30: "produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved"
GLO-90: "produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-90 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved"

Core API

GET /

Serves the map UI frontend (index.html) with optional URL parameters for coordinates and zoom level.

URL Parameters:

• lat — Latitude coordinate
• lng — Longitude coordinate
• zoom — Zoom level

Example: https://maps.osuv.de/?lat=48.1374&lng=11.5752&zoom=9

GET /v1/capabilities

Returns JSON capabilities indicating available optional features.

Response:

{
  "contours":  true,
  "routing":   true,
  "mcp":       true,
  "gpx":       true,
  "geocoding": false,
  "mcp_tools": ["search_poi", "plan_route", "export_gpx"],
  "difficulty_data": {
    "sac_scale": true, "via_ferrata_scale": true,
    "trail_visibility": true, "smoothness": true
  },
  "routing_limits": { "max_tiles": 1200, "max_crow_km": 50.0, "zoom": 14 },
  "tile_cache": {
    "roads":    { "entries": 812, "max_entries": 2000, "hits": 4210, "misses": 812 },
    "contours": { "entries": 240, "max_entries": 500,  "hits": 190,  "misses": 240 },
    "poi":      { "entries": 0,   "max_entries": 500,  "hits": 0,    "misses": 0 }
  }
}

• contours — whether contours.mbtiles was detected and loaded
• routing — always true; indicates the /v1/route/ endpoint is available
• mcp — the MCP endpoint at POST /mcp is available
• gpx — GPX export is available
• geocoding — whether PHOTONSERVER is configured (enables the geocode and reverse_geocode MCP tools)
• mcp_tools — names of the registered MCP tools
• difficulty_data — which hiking attributes the loaded tiles actually carry. All false on stock OpenMapTiles tiles (see Hiking attributes below), and in that case a missing warning means missing data, not easy terrain. The flags flip to true as soon as a tile containing them has been decoded.
• sac_scale_values — accepted values for max_sac_scale, easiest first
• tile_cache — live hit/miss counters of the decoded-tile caches

GET /v1/poi/{identifier}@{version}?lat={lat}&lon={lon}&category={category}&radius={radius}

Search for Points of Interest (POI) within a radius and return GeoJSON features.

Path Parameters:

• identifier — Tileset identifier
• version — Tileset version

Query Parameters:

• lat — Latitude coordinate (required)

• lon — Longitude coordinate (required)

• category — POI category (required): supermarket, pharmacy, hospital, fuel, charging_station, alpine_hut, camp_site, shelter, drinking_water, cave, viewpoint, or emergency

  drinking_water, cave, viewpoint and emergency need tiles built with the extended profile linked above — stock OpenMapTiles does not put springs, wells or cave entrances into the poi layer at all. Note that drinking_water includes springs and cattle troughs: that is a location, not a potability guarantee.

  Note that alpine_hut covers only real mountain huts (alpine_hut, wilderness_hut, basic_hut). OpenMapTiles files bus stop shelters and public air-raid shelters under subclass=shelter, which around Garmisch is 113 of 122 hits and mostly unnamed — those live in the separate shelter category so they cannot bury the actual huts.

• radius — Search radius in km, default 15, max 50 (optional)

Response: GeoJSON FeatureCollection of POIs, each with a properties.distance_km. Sorted by distance, but named POIs come first within the same ~500 m band — an unnamed hut slightly closer is less useful than a named one you can look up.

GET /v1/tiles/{identifier}@{version}/{z}/{x}/{y}.mvt

Fetch a tile in Mapbox Vector Tile (MVT) format.

Path Parameters:

• identifier — Tileset identifier (e.g., from MBTILES__1__IDENTIFIER)
• version — Tileset version (e.g., from MBTILES__1__VERSION)
• z — Zoom level
• x — Tile column coordinate
• y — Tile row coordinate (converts from Web Mercator to TMS)

Special: contours@1.0.0 is auto-loaded if contours.mbtiles exists.

Gzip Negotiation: Returns gzip-compressed tiles if client sends Accept-Encoding: gzip.

Response: application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile (MVT format)

GET /v1/styles/{identifier}@{version}/style.json

Returns a MapLibre GL style JSON with injected tile, font, and sprite URLs.

Path Parameters:

• identifier — Style identifier (e.g., osm-bright-gl-style)
• version — Style version (e.g., 1.0.0)

Query Parameters:

• tiles — Tile source in format {tile_id}@{tile_version} (required)
• fonts — Font source in format {font_id}@{font_version} (required)

Available Styles:

• dark-matter-gl-style@1.0.0
• fiord-color-gl-style@1.0.0
• maptiler-3d-gl-style@1.0.0
• `mapt