GISInternals Build System

This repository contains the Windows build automation used for the GISInternals daily SDK builds. It builds GDAL, MapServer, MapCache, their dependencies, language bindings, installers, and release ZIP packages with nmake and Visual Studio toolchains.

The normal scheduled entry point is makevc.bat. It runs the currently active Visual Studio 2019 and 2022 build scripts in sequence and writes dashboard logs under C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\build-output.

Main Entry Points

makevc.bat is the daily aggregate runner. It sets WiX light options and calls:

• makevc16.bat
• makevc16x64.bat
• makevc17.bat
• makevc17x64.bat

Each compiler script initializes the correct Visual Studio command environment with vcvars32.bat or vcvars64.bat, switches to drive E:, sets a compiler id such as vc16x64 or vc17x64, calls setversions.bat, then selects the requested build mode.

The common build pipeline is makepackage-cmake.bat. It is called by the compiler-specific scripts after they have set variables such as logid, gdal-dir, ms-dir, pkg-version, GDAL_BRANCH, MAPSERVER_BRANCH, and MAPCACHE_BRANCH.

Build Modes

With no argument, each modern compiler script performs three phases:

1. Development build from active upstream development branches.
2. Stable branch build for the versions in setversions.bat.
3. SDK/development package creation with the package-dev target.

Supported arguments:

• dev runs only the development branch build.
• stable skips the development branch build and runs the stable branch build, followed by SDK/development packaging.
• rel builds a release tag using the release numbers from setversions.bat.
• mapmanager runs the MapManager packaging path where enabled.
• nuget is handled by makevc16x64.bat and runs the release/NuGet path.

Older scripts such as makevc7.bat through makevc15x64.bat are retained for previous compiler generations. The current aggregate runner uses only VS 2019 and VS 2022.

Version Control

setversions.bat defines the MapServer, GDAL, and MapCache versions used by stable and release builds. At the time of this file:

• MapServer stable branch: branch-8-6
• MapServer release tag: rel-8-6-0
• GDAL stable branch: release/3.12
• GDAL release tag: v3.12.1
• MapCache stable branch: branch-1-14
• MapCache release tag: rel-1-14-1

The compiler scripts translate those values into source directory names and package names:

• Development build:
  • GDAL_BRANCH=master
  • MAPSERVER_BRANCH=main
  • MAPCACHE_BRANCH=main
  • package version gdal-mapserver
• Stable build:
  • GDAL_BRANCH=release/<gdal_major>.<gdal_minor>
  • MAPSERVER_BRANCH=branch-<ms_version>
  • MAPCACHE_BRANCH=branch-<mapcache_major>-<mapcache_minor>
  • package version gdal-<gdal_major>-<gdal_minor>-mapserver-<ms_version>
• Release build:
  • GDAL_BRANCH=v<gdal_major>.<gdal_minor>.<gdal_rel>
  • MAPSERVER_BRANCH=rel-<ms_version>-<ms_rel>
  • MAPCACHE_BRANCH=rel-<mapcache_major>-<mapcache_minor>-<mapcache_rel>
  • package version includes the GDAL and MapServer release numbers.

The Makefile then appends the CMake build directory to source directories. For example, gdal on VS 2022 x64 becomes gdal-vc17x64, while gdal-3-12 becomes gdal-3-12-vc17x64.

Configuration

config.opt is included by Makefile and is the main build configuration file. It controls:

• GDAL feature flags such as GEOS, PostGIS, ECW, FileGDB, Curl, Spatialite, CSharp, Python, Java, Xerces, Oracle, MrSID, PROJ 9, WebP, Zstandard, and PDF support.
• MapServer feature flags such as PROJ 9, FreeType, GEOS, GDAL, PostGIS, CSharp, Oracle, Java, Python, FastCGI, Cairo, GIF, protobuf-c, WMS/WFS/WCS server/client support, and MapCache.
• Dependency source locations, branch names, and versions.
• Local SDK locations for commercial or external dependencies such as ECW, FileGDB, Oracle, and MrSID.
• Global build switches such as ENABLE_DEPENDENCIES, BUILD_OUTDATED_TARGETS, NO_CLEAN, NO_BUILD, and DEBUG.

When ENABLE_DEPENDENCIES is enabled, the Makefile can build dependency libraries from scratch. The dependency targets are tied to the expected outputs, so missing files in the selected release-* output directory cause the corresponding dependency to be rebuilt.

detect_mrsid.opt is included when MrSID support is enabled and the file is present. It detects and configures the installed MrSID SDK layout.

Makefile Responsibilities

Makefile is the real build graph. It detects the active MSVC/NMake version, sets MSVC_VER, selects the CMake generator, and derives the output directory:

• x86 VS 2019: release-1929
• x64 VS 2019: release-1929-x64
• x86 VS 2022: release-1944
• x64 VS 2022: release-1944-x64

The default install root is C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk, while scheduled packages are copied to C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\downloads.

Important targets:

• update clones or updates GDAL, MapServer, and MapCache, checks out the requested branches, resets to the requested revisions, and writes revision files into $(OUTPUT_DIR)\doc.
• rebuild-gdal-cmake removes old GDAL/MapServer output and builds GDAL with CMake, including MSSQL plugin variants.
• gdal-csharp-test-cmake runs GDAL C# CTest tests.
• gdal-python-cmake-all builds Python binary distributions for configured Python versions and architectures.
• gdalversion writes the detected GDAL version metadata.
• gdal-autotest runs the GDAL pytest suite for core, OGR, OSR, algorithms, GNM, and utilities.
• mkgdalinst creates GDAL installers, including optional Oracle, ECW, MrSID, and FileGDB installers.
• ms builds MapServer and writes MapServer dependency metadata.
• mapcache builds MapCache.
• ms-csharp-test, ms-java-test, ms-php-test, ms-python-bdist, and ms-autotest handle MapServer bindings and tests.
• op-disable is currently used as the MapServer installer step placeholder.
• package signs installer files, creates the runtime ZIP, copies documentation and installers, and uploads the public artifacts.
• package-libs creates the headers/libs ZIP and uploads it.
• package-dev creates the larger development ZIP containing the output tree, Makefile, config files, licenses, and support files.

Common Package Pipeline

makepackage-cmake.bat executes the standard CMake-based package pipeline. For each step it:

1. Sets nmakecmd to the Makefile target.
2. Writes a "started" entry to %logid%.html.
3. Writes a yellow status file named status-%logid%.html.
4. Runs nmake %nmakecmd%, redirecting stdout and stderr to timestamped files.
5. Updates status and log HTML with success or failure.

The target order is:

1. update
2. rebuild-gdal-cmake SWIG_VER=4.0.2
3. gdal-csharp-test-cmake
4. gdal-python-cmake-all SWIG_VER=4.0.2
5. gdalversion
6. gdal-autotest
7. mkgdalinst
8. ms SWIG_VER=4.0.2
9. mapcache
10. ms-csharp-test
11. ms-java-test
12. ms-php-test
13. ms-python-bdist
14. ms-autotest
15. op-disable
16. package PKG_VERSION=%pkg-version% INSTALL_DIR=C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\downloads
17. package-libs PKG_VERSION=%pkg-version% INSTALL_DIR=C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\downloads

Most core build and packaging failures jump to :exit and stop the remaining pipeline. Some test failures are logged but do not stop the rest of the script.

Signing and Publishing

The release/package phase includes code signing before artifacts are copied and published. The Makefile calls cert\signdir.bat for files in $(OUTPUT_DIR)\install, which signs generated .msi and .exe installers with signtool, a public certificate selected by thumbprint, SHA-256 file digests, and the configured timestamp server. MapManager packaging uses cert\sign.bat to sign its MSI directly.

After packaging, the Makefile copies artifacts into C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\downloads and uses uploadftp.bat / uploadftpdir.bat to publish runtime ZIPs, headers/libs ZIPs, source/dev ZIPs, installers, and documentation to the GISInternals download area on www.gisinternals.com.

Build logs and dashboard snippets are written under C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\build-output, so the same web root exposes both the downloadable artifacts and the build status/log pages.

Logging and Dashboard Output

Every scheduled step writes three kinds of files to C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\build-output:

• %logid%.html is the build history for that compiler/mode.
• status-%logid%.html is the current dashboard status snippet.
• %compiler%-%timestamp%-%logid%.txt and ...-err.txt are stdout and stderr for the individual step.

The timestamp is derived from %date% %time%, so every step gets unique stdout and stderr links in the HTML build history.

Typical logid values:

• vc17x64-dev
• vc17x64-stable-3-12-8-6
• vc17x64-sdk
• vc17x64-released-3-12-8-6

Outputs

Build output directories are named from the detected compiler version:

• release-1929
• release-1929-x64
• release-1944
• release-1944-x64

Runtime packages are named like:

• release-1944-x64-gdal-mapserver.zip
• release-1944-x64-gdal-3-12-mapserver-8-6.zip
• release-1944-x64-gdal-3-12-mapserver-8-6-libs.zip
• release-1944-x64-dev.zip

The Makefile copies packages to C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\downloads and calls uploadftp.bat / uploadftpdir.bat to publish release files and documentation to the public download site.

The src tree and the release-* output directories are generated working state. If they are removed, the next build recreates the missing source clones and rebuilds missing output artifacts, including dependencies when ENABLE_DEPENDENCIES is set.

Running Manually

Run commands from a normal command prompt with access to the configured Visual Studio installations and local SDK dependency paths.

makevc.bat
makevc17x64.bat dev
makevc17x64.bat stable
makevc17x64.bat rel
makevc16x64.bat nuget

For one-off Makefile work, first enter the matching Visual Studio environment, then run nmake directly:

call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"
nmake update
nmake rebuild-gdal-cmake
nmake ms
nmake package PKG_VERSION=gdal-mapserver INSTALL_DIR=C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sdk\downloads

Maintenance Notes

• Update setversions.bat when changing the stable or release GDAL, MapServer, or MapCache versions.
• Update config.opt when changing dependency versions, source URLs, feature flags, or local SDK paths.
• If a new Visual Studio toolset reports an unknown _NMAKE_VER, add it to the compiler detection section in Makefile with the correct MSVC_VER, MESON_BACKEND, CMAKE_GENERATOR, and CMAKE_BUILDDIR.
• Keep cert\sign.bat, cert\signdir.bat, and the machine certificate store in sync when the public code signing certificate is renewed or replaced.
• Keep uploadftp.bat and uploadftpdir.bat in sync with the current GISInternals publishing endpoint and credentials.
• The update-* targets run git clean -fd and git reset --hard inside the cloned GDAL, MapServer, and MapCache source directories. Do not keep manual changes in those generated source trees.
• A full rebuild can be forced by removing the relevant generated source and output directories, for example src\... and release-1944-x64. The next run regenerates them from config.opt, the selected branches, and the Makefile targets.
• The current VS 2022 MapManager calls are commented out in makevc17.bat and makevc17x64.bat; VS 2019 scripts still call makemapmanager.bat.