The Esri arcgis-server-singlemachine.template.json Amazon Web Services (AWS) CloudFormation template creates an ArcGIS Server site on a single Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance. You can create a GIS Server site, ArcGIS Image Server site, or ArcGIS Knowledge Server site depending on the license you provide. If you create an ArcGIS Knowledge Server site, you must federate it with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal. You can federate the other types or use them as stand-alone sites.
Choose one of the following options for ArcGIS Server directory storage when using this template:
- Use cloud storage (Amazon S3 and DynamoDB) for the configuration store and a file share (EC2 instance) for shared directories.
- Place the configuration store and shared directories on a file server (EC2 instance) only.
You can also include ArcGIS Web Adaptor on the ArcGIS Server machine.
This template creates the following architecture in Amazon Web Services:
License:
Certain icons in the diagram are used with permission from Amazon Web Services.
Prerequisites
Prerequisites can be grouped by the items—such as files and accounts—that you must obtain and the tasks you must perform before running the CloudFormation template.
Required items
You need the following before running this template:
- An Amazon Web Services account.
The account must have access to basic AWS services such as CloudFormation, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Systems Manager, Amazon CloudWatch, Lambda, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Amazon DynamoDB, Secrets Manager, AWS Certificate Manager, and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).
- An Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and subnets.
If you are creating a stand-alone site, you can use one of the following CloudFormation templates to create a VPC: VPC with two public subnets or VPC with two public and private subnets with a NAT Gateway.
If you intend to federate this site with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, ensure that all components in the same ArcGIS Enterprise deployment run in the same VPC.
- An ArcGIS Server license. License files must include the server licensing role you need: ArcGIS GIS Server, ArcGIS Image Server, or ArcGIS Knowledge Server.
- An SSL certificate file (a .pfx file) and corresponding password.
The certificate must be from a certifying authority.
- If you create a deployment on Ubuntu EC2 instances in AWS GovCloud, you need an AMI ID. If you want to use the base canonical Ubuntu AMI, follow the instructions in Esri Amazon Web Services CloudFormation templates to identify the ID.
- The arcgis-server-singlemachine.template.json CloudFormation template.
Required tasks
Complete the following tasks before running this template:
- Prepare a deployment Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket in your AWS account. Specify the bucket name in the template when you launch the stack.
- Create a bucket or use an existing S3 bucket. You must be the owner of the bucket.
- Upload your ArcGIS software authorization files to the bucket.
- Upload your SSL certificate file to the deployment bucket.
- Configure a Domain Name System (DNS).
You must have a fully qualified domain name for your ArcGIS Server site. This domain name must exist before you launch this stack, and it must be resolvable. Contact your IT department if you are unsure how to obtain a fully qualified domain name and configure a DNS.
Create an Elastic IP (EIP).
Use AWS Management Console to create the Elastic IP address.
- Configure passwords in AWS Secrets Manager (optional but recommended).
You can configure the passwords for accounts such as the site administrator username and the Windows arcgis user password in AWS Secrets Manager. This provides you with a secret Amazon Resource Name (ARN). Use the ARN in place of a password in the template parameters when you launch a stack. If you don't use AWS Secrets Manager for storing passwords, you must type passwords in plain text in the template parameter when launching the stack.
Note:
When creating a secret ARN in AWS Secrets Manager for a password to be used with Esri CloudFormation templates, you must use the Other types of secrets secret type and use the Plaintext option. For more information about creating an Amazon Resource Name for passwords, see AWS CloudFormation and ArcGIS.
Tip:
By default, CloudFormation deletes partially created resources if stack creation fails. This is helpful because it removes unusable deployments from your account, but it can make it difficult to troubleshoot. To retain the stack in its failed state, disable the Rollback on failure CloudFormation stack creation option before launching the stack. See Setting AWS CloudFormation options in the AWS help for more information.
Parameters
Refer to the following tables for descriptions of the parameters used in this CloudFormation template. Tables are grouped by parameter type.
Amazon EC2 Configuration
| Parameter name | Required or not | Parameter description |
|---|---|---|
Platform Type | Required | Choose the operating system platform. Supported types are as follows:
For specific operating system versions, see Operating systems supported when using CloudFormation to ArcGIS deploy on AWS. |
EC2 Instance AMI ID | Optional | You can leave this parameter value empty. If you do, CloudFormation templates will use the latest Amazon Machine Image (AMI) ID for Microsoft Windows Server 2022 or Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS based on the type of platform you selected. Note:You cannot leave this parameter empty if you deploy in AWS GovCloud on a Linux platform. See Esri Amazon Web Services CloudFormation templates for instructions for finding the ID for the base Ubuntu AMI from Canonical. If you deploy on a supported Linux operating system other than Ubuntu, you can find the AMI ID using AWS Management Console. To use your own custom AMI, type the AMI ID using one of the following:
If you use a custom AMI, ensure that it meets the following requirements:
|
EC2 Instance Keypair Name | Required | Choose an EC2 keypair name to allow remote access to EC2 instances. |
Elastic IP Address Allocation ID | Required | Provide the Allocation ID of an elastic IP address in this format, eipalloc-XXXXXXXX. You need an elastic IP address to map the site domain name to the elastic IP address and access the EC2 instance via RDP/SSH from outside of the AWS environment. |
Amazon VPC Configuration
| Parameter name | Required or not | Parameter description |
|---|---|---|
VPC ID | Required | Choose a VPC ID. Note:All ArcGIS Enterprise components that are part of the same deployment must be deployed in the same VPC. If you need to create a VPC, you can use one of the VPC sample templates: VPC with public subnets or VPC with public and private subnets and a NAT Gateway. |
Subnet ID 1 | Required | Choose a subnet ID. The subnet ID that you select must be within the VPC you have selected above. If you used an Esri CloudFormation template to create the VPC, you can get the subnet ID from that template's output parameters. |
Domain Name System (DNS) Configuration
| Parameter name | Required or not | Parameter description |
|---|---|---|
ArcGIS Server Site Domain Name | Required | Provide the fully qualified domain name for the ArcGIS Server site. The domain name must exist and be resolvable. Contact your IT administrator if you are not sure what domain name to use. |
ArcGIS Server Configuration
| Parameter name | Required or not | Parameter description |
|---|---|---|
EC2 Instance Type | Required | Specify an EC2 instance type. The default is m5.2xlarge. This is the instance type that will be used for the ArcGIS Server machine. This EC2 instance will be configured with the AWS Auto Recovery feature. |
EC2 Instance Root Drive Disk Space | Required | The is the size of the root drive disk space for the ArcGIS Server EC2 instance. Provide the size of the root drive in GB. The default is 500 GB. Minimum is 200 GB. Maximum is 2048 GB. |
Deployment Bucket Name | Required | Provide the name of the Amazon S3 bucket that contains your software license files and SSL certificates. This bucket must already exist and contain the license file and SSL certificate for your deployment. You must be the owner of the bucket and it must reside in the same AWS account as your deployment. |
Server License File Name | Required | Provide the ArcGIS Server authorization file object key name. You must upload the license file (.ecp or .prvc file) to the deployment bucket before launching this stack. You can get the file object key name by browsing to the file within the deployment bucket in the Amazon S3 console. Examples include server.prvc or resources/licenses/server/server.prvc. You must use the appropriate license file for the type of ArcGIS Server site—GIS Server, ArcGIS Image Server, or ArcGIS Knowledge Server—that you are creating. License file names are case sensitive. Ensure that you type the name correctly. |
Site Administrator User Name | Required | Provide a username for the ArcGIS Server primary site administrator. The name must be 6 or more alphanumeric or underscore (_) characters and must start with a letter. |
Site Administrator User Password | Required | Provide a password for the ArcGIS Server primary site administrator. You can either type a plain text password or the ARN of your secret ID from AWS Secrets Manager. For more information on creating an Amazon Resource Name for passwords, see AWS CloudFormation and ArcGIS. The password must be 8 or more alphanumeric characters and can also contain dots (.). The password cannot contain any other special characters or spaces. |
Windows arcgis user password | Conditional | Provide a password for the arcgis user. The arcgis user is a local Windows login used to run the ArcGIS software services; therefore, this password is only required if you deploy on Windows. All arcgis users in the same deployment—for example, all Windows machines (including file servers) in an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment or in a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site—must use the same password. All arcgis users in the same deployment—for example, all Windows machines (including file servers) in an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment or in a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site—must use the same password. You can either enter a plain text password or the ARN of your secret ID from AWS Secrets Manager. It's a best practice to manage your passwords in AWS Secrets Manager. For information on creating an Amazon Resource Name for passwords, see AWS CloudFormation and ArcGIS. |
Configuration Store Type | Required | Choose where the ArcGIS Server configuration store will be located. The default is FileSystem.
Note:Even if you choose CloudStore, a separate file server is required to host the ArcGIS Server shared directories. You can provide an EC2 instance ID for the ArcGIS File Server Instance ID parameter, or an EC2 instance will be created.See the Considerations section of this page for information about DynamoDB capacity. |
Web Adaptor Name | Optional | To use ArcGIS Web Adaptor with the ArcGIS Server site, type a web adaptor name. Access to the ArcGIS Server site will be through a URL in the format https://<fully qualified domain name>/<web adaptor name>. The name must begin with a letter and contain only alphanumeric characters. Leave this parameter value empty if you do not want to use ArcGIS Web Adaptor, and URLs for the site will be in the format https://<fully qualified domain name><PortNumber>/arcgis. |
SSL Certificate File Name | Optional | If you include a web adaptor with the site, you can provide an SSL certificate from a certifying authority (.pfx file). If you do provide a certificate, you must upload it to the deployment bucket before launching this stack. You can get the file object key name by browsing to the file within the deployment bucket in the AWS S3 console. Examples of certificate names include domainname.pfx for a certificate file stored at the root level of the deployment bucket, or resources/sslcerts/domainname.pfx for a certificate file stored in a folder in the deployment bucket. If you use a web adaptor and leave this parameter value empty, an autogenerated self-signed certificate will be used with the web adaptor. |
SSL Certificate Password | Conditional | Provide the password for the SSL certificate. You can either type a plain text password or the ARN of your secret ID from AWS Secrets Manager. For information on creating an Amazon Resource Name for passwords, see AWS CloudFormation and ArcGIS. |
Outputs
When your stack is created successfully, you can see the following output parameters on the Outputs tab of the CloudFormation stack in AWS Management Console.
| Output name | Output description |
|---|---|
DeploymentLogsURL | This is the URL for the Amazon CloudWatch logs where all deployment logs are stored. You can refer to these logs for troubleshooting purposes if your deployment fails. |
ServerAdminDirURL | |
ServerManagerDirURL | The ArcGIS Server Manager URL. |
ServerRestDirURL | The ArcGIS Server REST Services URL. |
ServerServicesURL | The ArcGIS Server services URL. You can use this URL as an input parameter in the federate server template. |
StopStackFunctionName | This is the Stop Stack Lambda function URL. You can use this lambda function to stop all EC2 instances in the stack. |
StartStackFunctionName | This is the Start Stack Lambda function URL. You can use this lambda function to start all EC2 instances in the stack that you previously stopped. |
Considerations
Consider the following when creating a CloudFormation stack containing ArcGIS deployments:
- If you choose CloudStore for the Configuration Store Type parameter value, the Amazon DynamoDB provision capacity units are set to the following:
- Read capacity units: 250 tables
- Write capacity units: 25 tables
The estimated cost for these settings is approximately $36 per month. Esri testing indicates that these settings work well for publishing approximately 500 services. You can edit this setting in the AWS Management Console to decrease the units and lower the cost or increase the units to accommodate more services. Keep in mind that some functionality, such as publishing, will fail if you don't have enough capacity.
- Do not delete any AWS resource created by this CloudFormation template. To find out what AWS resources have been created by this template, refer to the Resources tab of the stack in the AWS Management Console. Each resource created by an Esri CloudFormation template also has metadata tags. However, some of the resources do not show tags in the AWS Management Console.
- You can use the AWS Lambda functions that appear in the stack outputs (listed in the Outputs section of this page) to stop EC2 instances in the stack when they are not in use and start them again when required. These functions are useful for managing costs.
When you run the Lambda function to stop the EC2 instances in the deployment, the function returns a message that the instances are stopped. However, if the instances participate in an Auto Scaling group, the function must also detach the instances from the group. This can take up to 10 minutes to complete, so wait at least 10 minutes before you run the Lambda start function to restart the deployment.
- If you use AWS Secrets Manager for passwords, such as the site administrator user password or the Windows arcgis user password, and later (after you create the deployment) you change those passwords, update the appropriate AWS Secrets Manager ARN's with the updated passwords.
Troubleshooting
If you observe any failures when creating this CloudFormation stack, see Troubleshoot ArcGIS deployments on AWS.