I've been spending the last couple of days working with GeoServer version 2.0-beta2, which introduces the ability to serve complex features. Serving complex features is a critical component of providing geologic data in GeoSciML format.

GeoServer accomplishes this through the use of what's called the "app-schema" extension. Unfortunately, there is not yet a user-interface for configuring the extension, and so you set up your complex features manually, by creating folders and configuration files in the right places that say the right things.

The best available description of how to configure it is located in the GeoServer documentation. However, one critical piece that I was missing: The app-schema extension is not installed by default with GeoServer 2.0-beta2! You have to install it after you've installed GeoServer.

1. Download the app-schema extension from GeoServer's files on SourceForge
2. Un-zip the archive and locate the two .jar files.
3. Place the two .jar files in your geoserver\WEB_INF\lib directory.
4. Make sure to restart Geoserver after doing so.

Even still, I have not yet gotten the tutorial data provided by Auscope to work properly on my instance of GeoServer. I was pleased to hear that Ben Caradoc-Davies, who I gather is the lead developer working on complex features in GeoServer, is working on making more complete documentation. I just can't get enough documentation.