Getting Capabilities

A GetCapabilities call to a WMS service returns two types of information: service-level metadata that describes the WMS service, and a list of layers and styles that a client can request.

Service-level metadata is the information that describes your WMS server. This information includes the URL endpoint that clients use to access your server, a description of what the service provides, who owns the service, search keywords, and access restrictions or limitations.

The layers and styles are the items that a client can request in a GetMap call.

A GetCapabilities request to the server returns the information in XML format.

To set up your WMS service metadata and layer information, use Spectrum Spatial Manager. For service metadata, click Services on the main menu, and then click WMS to display the Web Map Services (WMS) page.

• On the Layers tab there is a list of the layers and styles.
• On the Settings tab there are service settings and service information (Service Info).

In each location you can make changes.