Openstreetmaps and Nominatim: Do I install both or does Nominatim include openstreetmaps?

Question

Just poking around with my own Openstreetmaps server and came up against a few questions.

1) I followed these instruction: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Rails_Port to install Openstreetmaps, and I followed some other instructions: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim/Installation#Configure_for_use_with_Apache, to install Nominatim. Do I really need both installed or will Nominatim install openstreet maps for me?

2) I am very new to mapping, can someone explain the difference between openstreetmaps and Noimatim? I will be using the service to geolocation and not sure which to be using.

Cheers.

Answer 1

If you want to use Nominatim (OSM's first choice for geocoding and reverse geocoding) then you also need to install a local copy of the OSM database. This step is already included in the Nominatim installation procedure under the section Import and index OSM data. You need to download either the whole planet file or some extract. Also note that you probably want to perform periodic updates to keep your local OSM database up to date.

You don't need the rails port if you don't want to provide your own API and the whole web frontend.