Operating system requirements

The following 64-bit operating systems satisfy the minimum operating system requirements. Support is not provided for 32-bit operating systems; the setup will only proceed if the operating system is 64 bit. ArcGIS for Server is only supported on Linux x86_64, on CPUs that adhere to the x86_64 architecture (64 bit), with supported Linux releases.

Machines with an underscore (_) in the name are not supported. The setup will not proceed if an underscore is detected in the machine name.

The software should not be installed on an OS (binary) that has been modified. Esri does not provide support for products installed on a developer's release of an operating system.

Installing ArcGIS Server as a root user is a security risk and is not recommended. If you do this, a software diagnostics tool will return a warning indicating that you should not install as root.

For RHEL 5 Update 7 + libX11 patch information, see Red Hat Support. For RHEL 6 Update 4 + xorg-x11-server patch information, see Red Hat Support and KB Article 42226.

Hardware requirements

OpenGL version 1.5 or later is required. The minimum RAM requirement is 4 GB. If you are using the software with ArcGIS GeoEvent Extension for Server, the minimum RAM requirement is 8 GB.

These requirements are based on a typical development server with the following environment:

• Two cached map services
• One dynamic map service
• One locator service
• One geoprocessing service
• Geometry service
• PrintingTools service
• SQL Server Express
• ArcGIS Web Adaptor (IIS)

For a production environment, minimum hardware requirements are not listed because the user and business needs of the software may vary. These requirements must be considered in determining hardware needs to meet performance and scalability expectations. For assistance designing an ArcGIS infrastructure that will meet your specific requirements, see System Design Strategies.

Disk space requirements

ArcGIS for Server requires a minimum of 3.1 GB of available disk space to successfully install on the target system. Approximately 1.5 GB of the required disk space is used during the installation of this product. This temporary disk use will be removed at the end of the installation.

Temp space requirements

By default, resources are extracted to the system /tmp directory. This directory must have read, write, and execute permissions enabled. If the required space is not available in the /tmp directory, the setup program will attempt to extract resources to the user's HOME directory. If the required space is not available in the user's HOME directory, the setup program will report an error indicating this problem. Optionally, you can specify an alternate temp location by setting the IATEMPDIR environment variable.

Default file permissions

Due to security reasons, all permission types (read, write, and execute) for group and all users are turned off by default.

File handles and processes limits

ArcGIS Server is a data-intensive server product, and many of its data formats consist of hundreds of thousands of files. In heavily used systems, thousands or tens of thousands of files may be in use at any given time. If there are insufficient file handles and processes, requests may start failing randomly, leading to system downtime. The actual number of file handles and processes needed varies based on the data and the number of instances (threads/processes) running. Setting a file handle limit of 65,535 and a process limit of 25,059 will allow you to ensure that the system remains running.

There are soft and hard limits for file handles and processes on Linux. To determine the hard limits, use the ulimit -Hn -Hu (or limit -h descriptors if you're using csh) command. To determine the soft limits, use the ulimit -Sn -Su (or limit descriptors if you're using csh) command.

To increase the soft and hard limits, you'll need to edit the /etc/security/limits.conf file with superuser access. For example, you can add four lines in the file as follows:

<ArcGIS Server installation user> soft nofile 65535
<ArcGIS Server installation user> hard nofile 65535
<ArcGIS Server installation user> soft nproc 25059
<ArcGIS Server installation user> hard nproc 25059

After making this change, you'll need to log out and log back in with the particular user for the new values to take effect. To verify that the limits have been modified appropriately, use the ulimit -Hn -Hu and ulimit -Sn -Su commands as described above.

Firewall settings

ArcGIS for Server communicates on ports 1098, 4000-4004, 6006, 6080, 6099, and 6443. You'll need to open these ports on your firewall before installing the software. For more information, see Ports used by ArcGIS for Server.

Domain name service (DNS) and fully qualified domain name (FQDN) recommendations

If you'll be federating your site with Portal for ArcGIS, it's recommended you configure your organization's domain name service (DNS) to include fully qualified domain name (FQDN) entries for each site you intend to federate with the portal. Portal for ArcGIS will request the FQDN of each site when you federate.

DNS hostname entry

ArcGIS for Server must be installed on a machine that has a domain name service (DNS) hostname entry. This may require the system administrators for the site to add an entry to a name server in their network and that this name server be listed in the /etc/resolv.conf configuration file on the system.

If you'll be federating your site with Portal for ArcGIS, it's recommended you configure your organization's DNS to include fully qualified domain name (FQDN) entries for each site you intend to federate with the portal. Portal for ArcGIS will request the FQDN of each site when you federate.

SSL certificates

ArcGIS Server comes preconfigured with a self-signed SSL certificate, which allows the server to be initially tested and to help you quickly verify that your installation was successful. However, in almost all cases, an organization should request an SSL certificate from a trusted certificate authority (CA) and configure the server to use it. This could be a domain certificate issued by your organization or a CA-signed certificate.

Like ArcGIS Server, Portal for ArcGIS also comes with a preconfigured self-signed certificate. If you'll be federating your site with Portal for ArcGIS, you should request an SSL certificate from a trusted CA and configure the portal to use it.

For more information, see Best practices for configuring a secure environment.

Geoprocessing requirements

Python 2.7.8, Numerical Python 1.7.1, and Matplotlib 1.3.0 are required to support certain core geoprocessing tools. If these are not detected, the setup will install them automatically (recommended).

Supported web browsers

ArcGIS Server Manager requires one of the following web browsers to be installed:

• Google Chrome (version 10 or later)
• Mozilla Firefox (version 10 or later)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 8, 9, 10, or 11)
• Microsoft Edge

ArcGIS Server on cloud platforms

You can deploy ArcGIS for Server in the cloud. Many organizations do this to increase performance and capacity without having to buy and configure new hardware. Cloud platforms let you add more capabilities to your ArcGIS for Server deployment, including resizing compute capacity, automatically scaling capacity up and down according to conditions you define, automatically distributing application traffic across multiple instances for better performance, and much more.

Esri provides ArcGIS for Server virtual machine images on two popular cloud platforms, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Supported virtualization environments

All components of ArcGIS for Server are fully supported on virtual environments as long as they run on supported platforms. When running third-party applications with ArcGIS for Server, such as relational databases, the application must also be supported in a virtual environment. Check the third-party vendor for its virtualization support.

The following virtualization environments are known to perform well with ArcGIS for Server:

• VMware vSphere 5 including 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5
• VMware vSphere 6
• Microsoft Hyper-V

For additional information, see Virtualization and ArcGIS Server.