Linux 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 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.

You cannot install the software as a root user. If you attempt to do this, the installation will not proceed and a software diagnostics tool will display an error message indicating that you cannot install as root.

Prior and future updates or service packs on these operating systems are supported unless otherwise stated. The operating system version and updates must also be supported by the operating system provider.

The following package groups are required.

Hardware requirements

The minimum RAM requirement for ArcGIS GIS Server, ArcGIS GeoEvent Server, ArcGIS Image Server, or ArcGIS Business Analyst for Server is 8 GB per unique license role.

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.

ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server requires 16 GB.

When configuring ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server, ensure that the drive hosting the \tmp directory has sufficient temporary space available. When determining a sufficient value, consider the input data size, the type of GeoAnalytics task, and the number of nodes in your site.

The example scenario below has the following requirements:

• Input data size: 100 GB of CSV point features.
• ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server nodes: 3.
• Task: Join Features (self-join, simple Cartesian product of evenly distributed features).
• Recommended space on disk: (100 x 100 GB) / 3 = 3.3 TB/node.
• Increment space accordingly to accommodate concurrent GeoAnalytics jobs.

ArcGIS Server requires a minimum of 10 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.

The /tmp directory is also used when publishing. When uploading service definition (SD) files through ArcGIS Server Manager, files equal to the size of the SD file are created in the /tmp directory. Files are not permanently stored, but deleted every hour. Ensure that the /tmp directory has sufficient space for individual SD files to be published in this manner.

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 and change the values for the limits:

<ArcGIS Server installation user> soft nofile <file limit>
<ArcGIS Server installation user> hard nofile <file limit>
<ArcGIS Server installation user> soft nproc <process limit>
<ArcGIS Server installation user> hard nproc <process limit>

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 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 Server.

DNS hostname entry

ArcGIS 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 an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, 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.

SELinux support

The Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) module is supported on machines running ArcGIS Server. Because the default policy of SELinux may prevent ArcGIS Server from reaching internal components such as the configuration store, administrators may need to modify the SELinux policy. To do so, temporarily set the SELinux policy mode to permissive. This will record the "violations" of policy, such as actions taken by ArcGIS Server to access internal directories, but will allow them to occur. Administrators can note these violations by ArcGIS Server and modify the SELinux policy configuration to allow them before resetting the policy mode to enforced.

SSL certificates

ArcGIS Server comes preconfigured with a self-signed certificate, which allows the server to be initially tested and to help you quickly verify that your installation was successful. You must request a 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 an ArcGIS Server site with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, you should request a certificate from a trusted CA and configure the portal to use it. For more information, see Best practices for configuring a secure environment.

Supported web browsers

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

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 11
• Microsoft Edge

ArcGIS Enterprise on cloud platforms

You can deploy ArcGIS Enterprise on many cloud platforms. Any cloud platform that provides virtual machines that meet the basic system requirements for operating system and system specifications is supported for use with ArcGIS Enterprise.

In addition to basic support, Esri provides deployment tooling and prebuilt virtual machine images on two cloud platforms: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. When deploying on these two cloud platforms, it's recommended that you use the specialized tooling and images to simplify deployment and technical support.

Esri does not provide technical support for provisioning and configuring cloud infrastructure beyond what ArcGIS Enterprise deployment tooling creates and manages as part of its normal operations. For cloud platforms for which Esri does not provide specialized deployment tooling, support is limited to troubleshooting software-specific issues.

ArcGIS Enterprise also supports native cloud functionality such as storage and databases on several cloud platforms. Examples include Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Microsoft Azure SQL Database. See the documentation for each ArcGIS component for information on the native cloud functionality that's supported.

Supported virtualization environments

All components of ArcGIS Enterprise are fully supported on virtual environments as long as they run on supported platforms. When running third-party applications with ArcGIS Enterprise, 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 Enterprise and its components:

• VMware vSphere 6.5, 6.7
• Microsoft Hyper-V

Inclusion on the above list does not imply an endorsement or higher level of support. A lack of inclusion on the above list does not imply that an environment or specific version is not supported, simply that it is not an environment or version that Esri or its partners have explicitly tested.

For additional information, see Virtualization and ArcGIS Server.

Supported databases

See the following topics for information on databases supported with ArcGIS Server:

• Dameng database requirements
• IBM Db2 database requirements
• IBM Informix database requirements
• IBM Netezza Data Warehouse Appliance requirements
• Microsoft SQL Server database requirements
• Oracle database requirements
• PostgreSQL database requirements
• SAP HANA database requirements
• SQLite database requirements
• Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance requirements

ArcGIS Server Workgroup edition, which includes an installation of SQL Server Express, is supported on Windows operating systems only.