Set WMS properties

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) specification is an international specification for serving and consuming dynamic maps on the web. If you published a map image layer with WMS enabled, an additional WMS service is created in your organization.

A WMS service's properties are reflected in its capabilities files. When publishing a WMS service with system-generated capabilities files (the default), it is recommended that you populate WMS properties. You can also set the properties using an external capabilities file. You can manage WMS properties and supported operations in ArcGIS Server Manager or from the portal.

Configure WMS supported operations

To enable or disable supported operations for WMS services, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to the organization as an item owner with publishing privileges or an administrator.
  2. Open the item details page for the item.
  3. Click the Settings tab.
  4. Scroll to the WMS section and expand the Configuration heading.

    The following operations are provided:

    • Get Capabilities—Returns the capabilities information to the client as a response to a GetCapabilities request.
    • Get Map—Returns a map image to the client as a response to the GetMap request.
    • Get Feature Info—Returns features to the client as a response to a GetFeatureInfo request.
    • Get Legend Graphic—Returns a legend image to the client as a response to a GetLegendGraphic request.
    • Get Styles—Returns available styles information to the client as a response to a GetStyles request.
    • Get Schema Extension—Returns the schema to the client as a response to a GetSchemaExtension request.

  5. Check or uncheck the Get Feature Info, Get Legend Graphic, Get Styles, and Get Schema Extension boxes to turn on or off the operations.

    The Get Capabilities and Get Map operations cannot be turned off. These operations, at a minimum, must be enabled to be fully compliant with OGC WMS.

  6. Click Save.
  7. The edits are applied immediately.

Enter WMS properties

To populate or modify properties of a WMS service from the portal, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to the organization as an item owner with publishing privileges or an administrator.
  2. Open the item details page for the item.
  3. Click the Settings tab.
  4. Scroll to the WMS section and expand the Configuration heading.
  5. Under Properties, choose Enter Service Properties.

    Populate or modify the following properties:

    PropertyDescription

    Name

    The OGC service type. This property is automatically populated and should not be modified.

    Title

    The name of the map or image service that was used to create the WMS service. This property is automatically populated and should not be modified.

    Abstract

    A narrative description that provides additional information about the WMS service. For example:

    WMS service maintained by Acme Corporation. Contact: webmaster@wmt.acme.com. High-quality map showing eagle nests and possible nesting locations.

    Keywords

    A list of keywords or keyword phrases describing the WMS service that aid in catalog searching. For example:

    map, bird, eagle, nest, site

    Online Resource

    The Online Resource property lists the URL of the WMS service. It is necessary for a WMS client to communicate correctly with your WMS service. This property is automatically populated by ArcGIS Server and should not be modified.

    Contact Person

    The primary contact person for the WMS service. For example:

    John Smith

    Contact Position

    The position of the contact person for the WMS service. For example:

    IT Analyst

    Contact Organization

    The organization that created the WMS service. For example:

    NASA

    Address Type

    The address type used by the organization that created the WMS service. For example:

    postal

    Address

    The address of the organization that created the WMS service. For example:

    380 New York Street

    City

    The city in which the organization that created the WMS service resides. For example:

    Redlands

    State/Province

    The state in which the organization that created the WMS service resides. For example:

    California

    Postal Code

    The postal code in which the organization that created the WMS service resides. For example:

    92373

    Country

    The country in which the organization that created the WMS service resides. For example:

    USA

    Phone

    The telephone number where the primary contact person for the WMS service can be reached. For example:

    +1 909 793-2853

    Fax

    The fax number where the primary contact person for the WMS service can be reached. For example:

    +1 123 456-7890

    Email

    The email address where the primary contact person for the WMS service can be reached. For example:

    user@host.com

    Fees

    Text describing the fees imposed when accessing the WMS service. For example:

    none

    Access Constraints

    Text describing the restrictions and legal prerequisites for accessing and using the WMS service.

    For internal use only. Do not distribute.

    SLD Path or URL

    The path or URL for a Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) file.

    Additional Spatial Reference Systems

    This property can be used to add spatial reference systems to WMS services. By default, WMS services only list two spatial reference systems: EPSG:4326 (or CSR:84 for WMS 1.3.0) and the spatial reference of the map service on which the WMS is enabled.

    To list additional spatial reference systems, separate the spatial reference systems with a comma (,). For example, EPSG:4267,EPSG:4269,EPSG:102113. The EPSG namespace (for example, EPSG) and the EPSG ID (for example, 4267) must be separated by a colon (:), or the spatial reference will be ignored by the server.

    Custom Spatial Reference Systems

    The listCustomCRS property allows you to define a custom projection or well-known text (WKT) representation of a projection in a WMS service. This means publishers and consumers of the WMS can do the following:

    • Assign IDs to custom projections and advertise them through the WMS capabilities file.
    • Overwrite an existing projection with a WKT string.
    • Request a map in a particular projection by directly specifying the well-known text.

    Identify Tolerance (Pixels)

    This property allows you to define a tolerance (in pixels) in which the Get Feature Info operation will return feature information to the client when they click the screen. For example, if you define a pixel tolerance of 10 for your WMS, the information will be returned to the client as long as they click within 10 pixels of the feature on the screen.

    Use Layer Names From the Map Document

    By default, this option is unchecked, meaning that layers in the WMS service will be represented with zero-based integers, indicating their position in the table of contents from the top down.

    Starting at version 10.8, there are no restrictions to the characters that can be used in a layer name, and WMS server will generate a unique identifier for the name when necessary.

    Note:

    The server-assigned name will not affect the title.

    WMS server will assign a unique name by character substitution (replacing characters with an underscore) and by adding a numeric suffix. This will occur in the following instances:

    • A map contains two or more layers with the same name.
    • A layer name begins with a number.
    • A layer name contains spaces or special characters, including ?,&,=,+,`,#,%,^,{},[],<>,,,|,"

    Note:

    The suffix number is a computed value based on the original string and is not random. As such, it will remain the same as long as the layer name is unmodified. For example, if there are two layers named Layer "1" and Layer [1], both would be converted to Layer__1_. To differentiate between the two, a unique number would be appended as a suffix to the modified string. In this example, the modified layer names would be Layer__1_1234 and Layer__1_1256, respectively.

    Force Map Respect Based on Width and Height

    This property determines whether the map is re-aspected. By default, this option is deselected, which means that the pixels representing the map area are stretched to fit into the height and width requested by WMS clients.

    If this option is selected, the pixel height and width ratio will stay the same. When a map is requested at full extent, it may not fill the entire viewing area.

    Note:

    The following characters cannot be included in any of the layer properties: &, <, >, ", '. To learn more, see Special characters in service properties.

  6. Click Save.

    The edits are applied immediately.

Configure a WMS service to use external capabilities files

To configure your WMS service to use external capabilities files, you'll need to update the service to reference the URL of your capabilities files. To do so from the portal, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to the organization as an item owner with publishing privileges or an administrator.
  2. Open the item details page for the item.
  3. Click the Settings tab.
  4. Scroll to the WMS section and expand the Configuration heading.
  5. Under Properties, choose Use External Capabilities Files.
  6. In the Specify Location text box, specify the URL of the folder where you placed your capabilities files plus the common prefix you used for the files.
  7. Click Save.

    The edits are applied immediately.