Upgrade an ArcGIS Server site on AWS

You can upgrade an ArcGIS Server site (this includes ArcGIS GIS Server, ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server, or ArcGIS Image Server sites) on Amazon Web Services (AWS) by running through manual upgrade procedures or, if you created the deployment using 10.8 or 10.8.1 Esri Amazon Web Services CloudFormation templates, you can upgrade using Chef scripts.

Before you upgrade

No matter which upgrade method you use, review the following information before you upgrade your deployment:

• Accept the AWS Marketplace terms for the new version of the ArcGIS Enterprise Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) before you upgrade.
• You need a new license file to upgrade to 10.9.
• Make a backup of the ArcGIS Server site before upgrading.
• If the ArcGIS Server site is federated with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, you must upgrade the portal before upgrading this federated server.
• You must remove the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances in the ArcGIS Server site from the AWS Auto Scaling group (if it is in one) before you can upgrade the site. Once upgraded, you cannot put the instances back in the Auto Scaling group. Therefore, you must manually add instances to or delete instances from the ArcGIS Server site when needed, and you cannot use the Lambda functions created using Amazon Web Services CloudFormation templates provided by Esri to stop and start these instances.

  If you don't remove the instances or if you put the instances back in the Auto Scaling group after you upgrade, instances added to the ArcGIS Server site by the Auto Scaling group will be running the old version of the software. You cannot have mix of ArcGIS Server versions in a site, so this can corrupt your deployment.

Upgrade using manual upgrade procedures

The manual upgrade procedure for an ArcGIS Server site on AWS is similar to upgrading one on-premises. The difference on AWS is that, if the ArcGIS Server site Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud instances are deployed in an AWS Auto Scaling group, you must remove them from the Auto Scaling group before you upgrade.

Follow these steps to remove all EC2 instances from the Auto Scaling group.

1. Sign in to AWS Management Console and find the Auto Scaling group associated with your ArcGIS Server site.

   The Auto Scaling group includes the name of the CloudFormation stack. You can also open instance management for the group and confirm the EC2 instances in the group participate in your site.

2. Change the minimum capacity and maximum capacity properties of the stack's Auto Scaling group to 0.
3. Remove all the EC2 instances from the Auto Scaling group.
4. Change the desired capacity property of the Auto Scaling group to 0.

Once you remove all EC2 instances, delete the Auto Scaling group to prevent anyone from adding the instances back after the ArcGIS Server site is upgraded.

Now you can follow instructions in the installation guide to upgrade the ArcGIS Server site. Read the instructions specific to the operating system on your EC2 instances:

• Installation guide for ArcGIS Server (Linux)
• Installation guide for ArcGIS Server (Windows)

Upgrade using Chef scripts

Upgrade steps are different for deployments on Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu. Follow the instructions applicable to the operating system of your deployment.

Upgrade a site on Windows

Follow these steps to use Chef to upgrade an ArcGIS Server site on Windows Amazon EC2 instances.

Adjust the Auto Scaling group settings

Follow these steps to remove all EC2 instances from the Auto Scaling group.

1. Sign in to AWS Management Console and find the Auto Scaling group associated with the ArcGIS Server site.
2. Change the minimum capacity and maximum capacity properties of the stack's Auto Scaling group to 0.
3. Remove all the EC2 instances from the Auto Scaling group.
4. Change the desired capacity property of the Auto Scaling group to 0.

Once you remove all EC2 instances, delete the Auto Scaling group to prevent anyone from adding the instances back after the ArcGIS Server site is upgraded.

Download Chef client and ArcGIS Server to all EC2 instances and upgrade

Log in to each of the EC2 instances in the ArcGIS Server site to install the Chef client, install the latest version of ArcGIS Server, and upgrade.

1. Make a remote desktop connection to the first EC2 instance in the ArcGIS Server site.
2. Download and install Chef or Cinc client 15. If you have an older version of Chef installed, update it to version 15.
3. Download the ArcGIS Server 10.9 installation file (ArcGIS_Server_Windows_109_<BUILDNUM>.exe) from your account in My Esri and upload the files to a folder on the EC2 instance.
4. Obtain an ArcGIS GIS Server, ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server, or ArcGIS Image Server 10.9 authorization file and place it in a local folder on the EC2 instance or a file share that you can access from the EC2 instance.
5. Download the ArcGIS Cookbook version 3.7.0 (arcgis-3.7.0-cookbooks.zip) to the EC2 instance, unzip the file, and place the contents of the unzipped file in the C:\chef folder.
6. Delete the C:\chef\nodes folder.
7. Create a copy of your original C:\chef\node.json file and rename it to upgrade_server_windows.json.
8. Open the upgrade_server_windows.json file in a text editor.

   • Set the ArcGIS version to 10.9.

     "arcgis" : {
         "version": "10.9",

   • Specify the location where you placed the ArcGIS Server authorization file.

     "arcgis" : {
         "server": {
         "authorization_file" : "<drive>\\<folder>"

   • Set the ArcGIS archive repository to the folder where you placed the software file on the EC2 instance.

     "arcgis" : {
         "repository": {
     	   "archives": "<drive>\\<folder>"

   • Modify the run list to use the following recipe only:

     "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server]"

9. If you are upgrading an ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server site, add the configure_windows_firewall parameter and set to true to update the ports used to communicate between instances.

   "arcgis" : {
       "configure_windows_firewall": true,

10. Save and close the upgrade-server_windows.json file.
11. Open a command line window as an administrator, change the directory to C:\chef, and run the following command: chef-client -z -j c:\chef\upgrade-server_windows.json.
12. If there is more than one EC2 instance in the ArcGIS Server site, make a remote desktop connection to the next EC2 instance and repeat steps 2 through 11 until all instances are upgraded.
13. After you upgrade an ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server site, you can close ports 2181, 2182, and 2190 on each instance if you want to, as these are no longer needed to communicate between instances.

Upgrade a site on Ubuntu

Follow these steps to use Chef to upgrade an ArcGIS Server site on Ubuntu Amazon EC2 instances.

Adjust the Auto Scaling group settings

Follow these steps to remove all EC2 instances from the Auto Scaling group.

1. Sign in to AWS Management Console and find the Auto Scaling group associated with the ArcGIS Server site.
2. Change the minimum capacity and maximum capacity properties of the stack's Auto Scaling group to 0.
3. Remove all the EC2 instances from the Auto Scaling group.
4. Change the desired capacity property of the Auto Scaling group to 0.

Once you remove all EC2 instances, delete the Auto Scaling group to prevent anyone from adding the instances back after the ArcGIS Server site is upgraded.

Download Chef client and ArcGIS Server to all EC2 instances and upgrade

Log in to each of the EC2 instances in the ArcGIS Server site to install the Chef client, install the latest version of ArcGIS Server, and upgrade.

1. If you are upgrading an ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server site, open the following ports on the EC2 instances in the site to allow them to communicate with one another: 12181, 12182, and 12190.
2. As the ubuntu user, SSH into the first EC2 instance in the ArcGIS Server site.
3. Use one of the following commands to download and install Chef or Cinc client 15. If you have an older version of Chef installed, update it to version 15.
   • Chef client: sudo curl -L https://omnitruck.chef.io/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -v 15.14.0
   • Cinc client: sudo curl -L https://omnitruck.cinc.sh/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -v 15.14.0
4. Download the ArcGIS Server 10.9 installation file ( ArcGIS_Server_Linux_109_177864.tar.gz) from your account in My Esri and upload the files to a folder on the EC2 instance.
5. Obtain an ArcGIS GIS Server, ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server, or ArcGIS Image Server 10.9 authorization file and place it in a local folder on the EC2 instance or a file share that you can access from the EC2 instance.
6. Download the ArcGIS Cookbook version 3.7.0 (arcgis-3.7.0-cookbooks.tar.gz) to the EC2 instance, untar and unzip the file, and place the files contents in the /var/chef directory.
7. Create a copy of your original /etc/chef/node.json file and rename it to upgrade_server_linux.json.
8. Open the upgrade_server_linux.json file in a text editor.

   • Set the ArcGIS version to 10.9.

     "arcgis" : {
         "version": "10.9",

   • Specify the location where you placed the ArcGIS Server authorization file.

     "arcgis" : {
         "server": {
         "authorization_file" : "/<folder>/<subfolder>"

   • Set the ArcGIS archive repository to the folder where you placed the software file on the EC2 instance.

     "arcgis" : {
         "repository": {
     	   "archives": "/<folder>/<subfolder>"

   • Modify the run list to use the following recipe only:

     "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server]"

9. Save and close the upgrade-server_windows.json file.
10. As the ubuntu user, change the directory to /var/chef, and run the following command: chef-client -z -j /etc/chef/upgrade-server_linuxs.json.
11. If there is more than one EC2 instance in the ArcGIS Server site, make an SSH connection to the next EC2 instance and repeat steps 2 through 9 until all instances are upgraded.
12. After you upgrade an ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server site, you can close ports 2181, 2182, and 2190 on each instance if you want to, because these are no longer needed to communicate between instances.