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Connections

GeoCat Bridge 1.0 can connect to the following server applications:

For information on how to set up these connections, see the configuration section.

For more information on how to use the connections, see the user interface section.

No MapServer support

GeoCat Bridge users migrating from ArcMap™ may notice that MapServer support is missing.
Unfortunately, there are currently no plans to add this feature to the Pro version of Bridge.

GeoServer support

For map publishing, GeoCat Bridge uses the GeoServer REST API.
Although GeoCat plans to leverage that API as much as possible, there will always be some limitations. For advanced configuration, the GeoServer web interface may still have to be used.

The following OGC service types are supported:

  • WMS
  • WFS
  • WCS
  • OWS

GeoCat Bridge will automatically set up the services listed above when publishing to a workspace, provided that they have been enabled in the global GeoServer configuration, and that they are applicable to the data that is being published.

For (metadata) linking and querying, GeoCat Bridge used the GeoServer OWS endpoints.

There are plans to also support WMTS (requires GeoWebCache) and WPS in the future, as well as the OGC APIs.

GeoNetwork support

For metadata publishing (and search functionality in the future), GeoCat Bridge uses the GeoNetwork REST API.

GeoCat Bridge 1.0 can only publish ISO 19139 metadata records, overwriting existing records if the UUID matches.

It cannot delete records or apply transformations during import, nor can it perform more advanced operations yet.

For more information about how GeoCat Bridge processes metadata, see the metadata section.

Authentication

GeoCat Bridge 1.0 currently only supports Basic Authentication for both GeoServer and GeoNetwork.

You may choose to store your credentials in the GeoCat Bridge configuration file. The password will be AES encrypted.

From a security perspective, it is recommended to not store your password. If you choose to omit them, you will be prompted for your credentials when GeoCat Bridge tries to connect to a specific GeoServer or GeoNetwork URL for the first time. For the lifetime of the Bridge session, the credentials will be stored in (secure) memory.

Single Sign-On

GeoCat is in the process of adding support for OIDC (OpenID Connect) to enable SSO (Single Sign-On) for both GeoServer and GeoNetwork through Keycloak. This will allow enterprise users to connect using Microsoft Entra ID (previously Azure AD) for example.