GeoNode Files

GeoNode 5.1.0 builds on the 5.0 architecture and focuses on broadening the range of data GeoNode can catalog and publish, from non-spatial tabular data to cloud-native remote formats, while strengthening metadata internationalization, permissions management, and security. This release also marks the start of our documentation migration to a new MkDocs-based site.

Release Notes

Support for non-spatial datasets

GeoNode can now manage tabular data that has no geographic component. CSV files (and other non-spatial sources) can be uploaded and are stored as PostGIS tables, then published to GeoServer and registered in the GeoNode catalog through the standard resource-management workflow. Internally, datasets now expose is_spatial / is_tabular properties so resource managers, download handlers and APIs can intelligently handle resources with no spatial information. This opens GeoNode to a much wider set of use cases where attribute tables, lookup tables and statistical datasets live alongside spatial layers.

Support for COG and FlatGeoBuf remote resources

GeoNode adds first-class support for two cloud-native formats, both in the client and as remote resources in the GeoNode catalog:

• Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG): register large raster datasets hosted externally simply by providing their URL. Rather than downloading the whole file, GeoNode uses HTTP range requests to read metadata (CRS, spatial extent) directly from the remote source, enabling efficient, cloud-native raster access without storing massive files locally.
• FlatGeoBuf (FGB): register external FlatGeoBuf datasets as remote vector layers by URL. As with COG, HTTP range requests are used to fetch metadata (CRS, extent, attributes) directly from the source, with graceful fallback when a server does not support range requests.

Ability to upload and download XLSX

Microsoft Excel (XLSX) is now a supported format for both ingestion and export. Users can upload spreadsheets as datasets and download existing datasets as XLSX, complementing the CSV and other export options introduced previously. This is an optional feature that can be activated as a system setting.

Multilanguage metadata support

The metadata internationalization mechanism has been refactored and generalized so that localized labels and descriptions are no longer confined to the geonode.metadata app. Metadata fields can now carry translations across the platform, and a new opt-in include_i18n query parameter lets resource APIs (datasets, documents, maps, …) return all available translations alongside the default value (e.g. title, title_en, title_ru), preserving full backward compatibility for existing clients. Related improvements make generic use of sparse metadata fields and fix label reloading when thesauri change.

Support for datasets with multi and mixed geometries

GeoNode now correctly handles datasets that mix geometry types, Points, MultiPoints, LineStrings, MultiLineStrings, Polygons and MultiPolygons, within the same layer. Previously, upserting data with mixed geometries could leave the stored geometries out of sync with the source; the new handling ensures that source data is faithfully reflected in storage and display after update and replace operations.

Permissions and security

This release includes a substantial round of permissions and security work:

• Permissions diffing and PUT semantics: the permissions API now computes and applies a proper diff, and PUT correctly replaces permissions instead of merging them.
• Authentication for external resources: a generic authentication layer decouples how authentication settings are stored from how they are applied to outgoing requests, via a unified AuthConfig model supporting multiple types (Basic, Token, signed/SAS URLs). Credentials can be reused across integrations instead of being hardcoded per use case, and are used, for example, when generating map thumbnails from datasets hosted on authenticated remote servers.
• Default permissions for registered members: administrators can now configure baseline permissions (view, download, edit, manage) for all authenticated users, mirroring the existing anonymous-user settings.
• Tighter controls on remote resources: creation of remote resources is restricted to administrators by default, and Remote Services creation actions are hidden in the UI when the user lacks the required permissions.
• Fixed an issue where a password was unexpectedly prompted on private datasets.

Documentation migrated to MkDocs

The GeoNode documentation has begun migrating from Sphinx to MkDocs, with a refreshed and easier-to-navigate site. This is still a work in progress: https://docs.geonode.org/en/latest/

Improvements and Fixes

• Sync the UI language selection with the user's profile settings (#14150)
• Allow uploading thumbnails through the UI for remote spatial datasets (#14095)
• Reload the label thesaurus on thesaurus changes (#14097)
• Add inline Links inside the Django admin pages for datasets and documents (#13914)
• Return dirty resources inside endpoints (#13828)
• Improve regenerate_xml (#13812)
• Fix missing entries when searching with the new indexing (#13807)
• Fix EXIF metadata extraction from documents and support other media types (#13728)
• Implement an update-bbox endpoint for datasets (#8785)
• Drop requirements.txt and move dependencies to pyproject.toml (#13859)

Software Updates

• GeoServer upgraded to 2.28.4 (from 2.27.3)
• GeoNode client / MapStore upgraded to v2026.01.02
• Django updated to 5.2.15
• pyCSW upgraded to the 3.0 series
• Dependencies consolidated into pyproject.toml (no more requirements.txt)

Full Changelog

• Features
• Enhancements
• Security Fixes
• Bug Fixes

Full commit history: https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/compare/5.0.0...5.1.0