I could not install the GDAL extension for Geoserver 2.26.1 on Debian 12

GeoServer GeoServer User
,
1

I could not install the Geoserver GDAL extension on Debian 12. I followed the instructions on GDAL Image Formats — GeoServer 2.26.x User Manual but I get the following error in the modules tab in the Geoserver admin interface.

Module Name: ImageI/O-Ext GDAL Coverage Extension

Module ID: gs-gdal

Version: 2.26.1

Component: GridCoverage2DReader

Message:

JNI GDAL Wrapper Version: unavailable

java.library.path: /usr/java/packages/lib:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/jni:/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/jni:/lib:/usr/lib

The installed GDAL version is as follows:

gdalinfo --version

GDAL 3.6.2, released 2023/01/02

The installed packages related to GDAL are as follows:

apt list --installed | grep gdal

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

gdal-bin/stable,now 3.6.2+dfsg-1+b2 amd64 [installed]

gdal-data/stable,now 3.6.2+dfsg-1 all [installed]

gdal-plugins/stable,now 3.6.2+dfsg-1+b2 amd64 [installed,automatic]

libgdal32/stable,now 3.6.2+dfsg-1+b2 amd64 [installed]

python3-gdal/stable,now 3.6.2+dfsg-1+b2 amd64 [installed]

On the other hand, there is no folder with the version number where GDAL is installed, as the documentation says. There is a folder “/usr/share/gdal” and various files under this folder but no folder with version number. I also could not find the GDAL “lib” folder. I installed the Debian GDAL packages as follows:

apt install libgdal32

apt install gdal-bin

I downloaded the gdal-3.6.0.jar package from Maven Central: org.gdal:gdal and tried to overwrite the gdal-3.2.0.jar in the lib folder.

What am I doing wrong? How can I find the GDAL lib and data folder?

2

Hi,
the module needs to Java Native Interface library for the GDAL library, which has not been available in the Debian package system for a few years now.
You’ll have to build GDAL from sources in order to make that library available.

See also this discussion, and the related tickets, for an evaluation of the current status, and possible workarounds:

https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/ticket/2288

The ticket is 3 years old, not sure if the pre-built binary they link to is still going to work or not.

Cheers
Andrea

3

I removed default gdal packege which is provided by Debian 12. I compiled latest gdal (3.10.1) without adding any extra paramater for bindings since documentation says that java, python etc bindings are ON as default by following the documantation at Building GDAL from source — GDAL documentation . I ran below commands to compile as in documentation.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake …
cmake --build .
cmake --build . --target install

I replaced the gdal-3.2.0.jar file with the gdal-3.10.1.jar in WEB-INF/lib folder as described at https://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/data/raster/gdal.html

Result is same. I got the same below error at web interface:

JNI GDAL Wrapper Version: unavailable
java.library.path: /usr/java/packages/lib:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/jni:/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/jni:/lib:/usr/lib

What may be the problem? Should I use/compile Gdal 3.2.x or 3.4.x as documention mentioned that those are the tested verisons?

Also I tried suggestions at “#2288 (libgdal-java needs to be added to the nightly osgeo repo) – OSGeoLive” but it did not work too. There is not “swig/java/java.opt” file in default Debian 12 source gdal-3.6.2+dfsg. “debuild -us -uc” ended with error.