Just a notice: the server is severely overloaded. The harddisk is 95% full all the time and scripts are waiting for some space to clear before the next request will be handled. There are 111 requests in the queue currently so expect a long wait before you receive your notification email. Sorry, but there’s not much I can do. Ideas are welcome 
Edit: May 30, 23:30 CET: there are 200 requests in the queue. Be patient people…
There is also a osm garmin map generated for the Phillipines: http://esambale.wikispaces.com/osmphil_garmin
There are currently 213 requests in the queue…
I selected some tiles of the Russian Federation and Mongolia. In two weeks I will go there again. The Russians have done a lot of work on their roads for Openstreetmap. I think there are more then twice the roads now in the database as last year.
So last year I was in Mongolia too. On one of the south roads there were about 200 km’s not covered by osm. So I just drove by trial and error and found a small road from Buutsagaan to Guulin and then to Altai. You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/2v4voq2
I consider it my nicest contribution to openstreetmap.
That was yesterday evening at nine o’çlock.
The email was sent this morning at 8 o’çlock. That’s fast! Thanks.
Someone could donate a harddisk!?
The files will be available for 48 hours. That is nice. But I just downloaded the requested files within half an hour of you sending/me receiving the notification email so why keep them any longer from there on?
If you put a reply link in the email “i’m ready: release the files” then you can free diskspace as soon as it is no longer needed.
http://…/routable/release.php?dir=27-05-2010&code=e74b2ea23456
That needs some programming indeed. (I have already ideas how you could implement that :)).
At further thought|: You could provide your webpage with some checkboxes for the kind of files to be produced. Now you produce all files. Just producing the needed files will save not only harddisk space but also processing time. I for example only just needed the .img file.
At first the service was CPU bound (no caching, cpu running 100% 24/7 not keeping up with demand). This was solved by adding smart caching (keep combinations that are requested often). So if a certain combination is requested again within the 48 hours window (e.g. Germany or the Netherlands) the countdown counter is reset. This allowed many more users and it worked like charm for a while, but demand and the planet file are growing and so is the load on the system. Currently the system is HDD bound, but a much bigger harddisk would make the system CPU bound again quite quickly judging by the Munin graphs. Also, the server is sponsored, no idea if it’s possible (or they’re willing) to add or replace a harddisk.
I changed the timeout from 48 hours to 42 yesterday, it gives the system a bit fresh air. Btw, bandwidth usage is 2TB+ per month…
That could be useful indeed as it would alleviate both key limiting factors
I don’t know how good or how expensive your hosting company is (if you are using one) but during the last 16 years of building web sites I have had some good and plenty of nightmares. I am currently using Hostgator and have to say they are exceptional in terms of value and support. I suspect they might even be interested in a deal where you could advertise them on the site to reduce hosting costs.
Just a thought you might want to check out.
Well, Oxilion is sponsoring this server and I’m certainly not complaining about their service level or commitment, in contrary. They also sponsor a development and tileserver for the Dutch OSM community, host the OSM forum and sponsor a server for my online routing website yournavigation.org. But, although they have been very supportive so far, I’m reluctant to ask for even more.
I believe that a combination of allowed high cpu usage and lots of traffic for little money is a rare combination in the hosting business. I also don’t have the illusion that somehow showing a few adds on the website is going to compensate for moving to a rented server at hosting company X. Or am I missing something?
It sounds like what you have is as good as it gets. Greencaps suggestions make good sense to me if they can be implemented.
An alternative might be to disable user-custom tile selection builds and focus on the pre-built sets of pre-defined regions, ie. a set of tiles for each country, or larger or smaller regions based on population and map density. Then the builds could be mirrored across a number of sites. When a user selects a pre-defined set, they could be given URLs for a mirror site from which to download instead. This should reduce bandwidth, harddisk space and CPU issues.
I would be happy to put a mirror of pre-built OSM maps for Garmin on my site - my site currently serves around 150GB of (non-OSM) garmin maps and I’m only paying 6USD/month.
This suggestion has popped-up a few times now but I’m very weary of it. If someone is just looking for a single country then they already have lot’s of choices. The novelty of this service is that you can have it combine and pre-package tiles from multiple countries in an relatively simple way. Going back to ‘only countries’ would be a huge step back IMHO and would make this service just one of many.I think that: “if it’s just about countries, then I think it’s best for the OSM community in each country to provide the Garmin maps”.
So, in short: going back to whole countries only is the last resort and I might just shut the operation down at that point. I do really appreciate the offer for providing alternative hosting though!
Indeed. This is a unique site. Very good work Lambertus!
That it may be there for a long time to come.
Thanks
It may be me that is confused (again) but I got the impression that shonkylogic was suggesting dividing the map into a lot more tiles. This would mean that some people could download much smaller sections. In my case it would reduce the files from a bout 15mb down to 5mb or less.
I don’t know if I am typical but I only work on a very small area and only use a slightly larger area for my GPS.
Of course dividing the map into many more tiles may be a lot of work for Lambertus who obviously already has a heavy workload so it may not be practical.
Sorry Skywoolf, I wasn’t suggesting that tiles be split any further - I think the splitting is done automatically based on map feature density?
I was suggesting that popular map requests be pre-compiled and mirrored to take load off the server. Lambertus is correct that some sets are available elsewhere for some countries and regions but not all. And many countries do not provide a mapsource-installer format.
However I totally understand and agree with Lambertus’ reply. This is indeed a unique service, the core issue is that it’s become too popular for the available resources.
Another idea might be to offload the maps to an alternative hosting provider once they’re compiled, that way your own disk remains relatively clean.
Indeed, I’m trying to create tiles with maximum tile area because the maps created by Mkgmap have (had? Don’t recall exactly from the top of my head.) problems routing over more then one tile edge. This might not be a problem in Asia where the data density is mostly not very high, but caused many problems in Western Europe. Also, but this is not an issue anymore, earlier versions of the tools to create the maps could handle only 255 tiles (there are about 800 now).
Fair point, but could partly be a chicken and egg problem. Alternatively I could just stop providing maps for Europe and North America.
Thanks. Limits have been hit before and each time a solution has expanded usability, functionality and allowed even more users, but now that the low hanging fruit has been eaten it just gets a bit more difficult to improve. Improvements should still be possible though, I like greencaps’ suggestion.
This suggestion is interesting. I reckon it’s susceptible to break-down and requires quite a bit of bookkeeping but it could move the limit a bit further. Pure hosting (without the CPU cycles for map generation) is cheap, at least in the USA and -like you- there should be some people who would contribute some spare space. Yes I like it, but as always, it will take time to develop.
http://www.openlayers.org ligt er uit.
Daarom doet de site van Lambertus het niet (op dit moment).
Ha ha… dat heeft dan maar een half uurtje geduurd of zo. Nu alles weer ok.
There is a request backlog due to server problems yesterday, it might take a while for the server to catch up. So expect your maps to arrive a bit later then usual.
Hi,
I’m trying to create a map of Germany, but when I select Germany from the menu it says I use to many tiles. Is there a way to get a complete map of Germany?
Thanks
Dennis.
Hi Lambertus,
I would like to thank you for this wonderful service that you have provided for us! More power to you and to the community. 
Cheers,
Rommel