Programmatically setting a layer's bounding box in Geoserver

Question

I have a system built on PostGIS/GeoServer/OpenLayers. Data (a ship's voyage track) is inserted into the database in real-time - a bunch of variables and point geometry type. This is served up via (primarily) WFS to OpenLayers.

I dynamically publish the layer for a new voyage using REST. When done this way, the bounding box (according to the config page) is set to 0,0,-1,-1 for both native and lat/long.

What I'd like to do is set this to a reasonable value programmatically - effectively automating going in and using the 'Compute from Data'/'Compute from Native Bounds' links on the layer config page.

My preference is to do this via a RESTful call, however this doesn't seem to be supported in the current version of the standard API. Any other alternative solutions are more than welcome.

Answer 1

Configure one layer by hand and see what the parameters in the REST xml representation are, then do the same when configuring the new layer (or as an update, after configuring it). Always remember to add true to your representations, otherwise the layer will be disabled