Chainguard Container for geoserver

GeoServer is an open source Java-based server that allows you to share, process, and edit geospatial data. It implements industry-standard OGC protocols including WMS (Web Map Service), WFS (Web Feature Service), and WCS (Web Coverage Service) for serving maps and spatial data to various clients.

Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.

Download this Container Image

For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/geoserver:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard Registry.

Compatibility Notes

The Chainguard GeoServer image is comparable to the official GeoServer Docker image. Like most Chainguard Containers, it is designed with minimalism and security in mind:

• Runs as a non-root user (uid/gid 65532)
• Built on Tomcat 9 with OpenJDK 17
• Compatible with official GeoServer environment variables
• Includes only essential runtime dependencies

Getting Started

Running GeoServer Locally

To run GeoServer locally with the default demo data:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/geoserver:latest

Access the GeoServer web interface at http://localhost:8080/geoserver with default credentials:

• Username: admin
• Password: geoserver

Mounting a Custom Data Directory

To persist your GeoServer data and configuration:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 \
  -v /path/to/data:/opt/geoserver_data \
  cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/geoserver:latest

Production Configuration

For production deployments, skip the demo data:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 \
  -e SKIP_DEMO_DATA=true \
  -v /path/to/data:/opt/geoserver_data \
  cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/geoserver:latest

Deploying with Helm

GeoServer can be deployed to Kubernetes using the NCSA Helm chart:

helm repo add ncsa https://opensource.ncsa.illinois.edu/charts/
helm repo update

helm install geoserver ncsa/geoserver \
  --set image.repository=cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/geoserver \
  --set image.tag=latest

This approach is tested in our CI/CD pipeline and ensures compatibility with standard Kubernetes deployments.

Installing Extensions

GeoServer supports various extensions that can be installed at startup:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 \
  -e INSTALL_EXTENSIONS=true \
  -e STABLE_EXTENSIONS="ysld,ogcapi-features,wps" \
  cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/geoserver:latest

Available extensions can be found at the GeoServer extensions page.

Environment Variables

The Chainguard GeoServer image supports the following key environment variables:

• GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR: Path to GeoServer data directory (default: /opt/geoserver_data/)
• SKIP_DEMO_DATA: Skip loading demo data (default: false, set to true for production)
• INSTALL_EXTENSIONS: Enable extension installation (default: false)
• STABLE_EXTENSIONS: Comma-separated list of stable extensions to install
• COMMUNITY_EXTENSIONS: Comma-separated list of community extensions to install
• CORS_ENABLED: Enable CORS support (default: false)
• POSTGRES_JNDI_ENABLED: Enable PostgreSQL JNDI configuration (default: false)

For a complete list of environment variables, refer to the official GeoServer Docker documentation.

Documentation and Resources

• GeoServer Official Documentation
• GeoServer Docker Container Guide
• GeoServer GitHub Repository

What are Chainguard Containers?

Chainguard's free tier of Starter container images are built with Wolfi, our minimal Linux undistro.

All other Chainguard Containers are built with Chainguard OS, Chainguard's minimal Linux operating system designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a more secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Containers include:

• Minimal design, without unnecessary software bloat
• Daily builds to ensure container images are up-to-date with available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs attesting to the provenance of all artifacts within the image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

For cases where you need container images with shells and package managers to build or debug, most Chainguard Containers come paired with a development, or -dev, variant.

In all other cases, including Chainguard Containers tagged as :latest or with a specific version number, the container images include only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These minimal container images typically do not contain a shell or package manager.

Although the -dev container image variants have similar security features as their more minimal versions, they include additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. We recommend using multi-stage builds to copy artifacts from the -dev variant into a more minimal production image.

Need additional packages?

To improve security, Chainguard Containers include only essential dependencies. Need more packages? Chainguard customers can use Custom Assembly to add packages, either through the Console, chainctl, or API.

To use Custom Assembly in the Chainguard Console: navigate to the image you'd like to customize in your Organization's list of images, and click on the Customize image button at the top of the page.

Learn More

Refer to our Chainguard Containers documentation on Chainguard Academy. Chainguard also offers VMs and Libraries — contact us for access.

Trademarks

This software listing is packaged by Chainguard. The trademarks set forth in this offering are owned by their respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement by such companies.