System requirements

The system specifications, including hardware requirements, supported operating systems, and web servers required to run ArcGIS for Server, are available at ArcGIS for Server system requirements.

Supported operating systems

Note:

Support will no longer be provided for 32-bit operating systems. The ArcGIS for Server setup will only proceed if the operating system is 64 bit.

The operating systems below satisfy the minimum operating system requirements:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 Update 7 (64 bit) with libX11 patch
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 (64 bit)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 (64 bit)

Caution:

For required packages in each supported operating system, the latest lists are available at ArcGIS for Server system requirements.

File handles and processes hard limit requirements

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 are using csh) command. To determine the soft limits, use the ulimit -Sn -Su (or limit descriptors if you are 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 like this in the file:

<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 will 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, you can use the ulimit -Hn -Hu and ulimit -Sn -Su commands as described above.

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.

Note:

You cannot install ArcGIS for Server on a shared network directory (NFS mounted folder). The directory must be local on the target system.

Temp space requirements

By default, installer resources are extracted to the system /tmp directory. If the required space is not available in the /tmp directory, the setup program will attempt to extract installer 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.

You may specify an alternate /tmp location by setting the following environment variable:

For c shell:

$ setenv IATEMPDIR /your/temp/space/directory

For bourne shell:

$ IATEMPDIR=/your/temp/space/directory

$ export IATEMPDIR

If the directory indicated by IATEMPDIR does not exist, the setup program will report an error indicating this problem.

Default file permissions

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

Machine name restriction

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

X Window System

The X Window System is required when installing ArcGIS for Server using the graphical user interface option of the installer. It is usually installed by default with the operating system.

Additional system requirements

The following are additional system requirements for ArcGIS for Server.

Python

Python 2.7.5 will be installed by the ArcGIS for Server setup as it is required to support certain core geoprocessing tools.

OpenGL

ArcGIS for Server also requires OpenGL version 1.5 or later.

ArcGIS authorization file

Each new version of ArcGIS for Server requires a new authorization. For more information, see To authorize your software.

Ports

ArcGIS for Server uses certain ports to communicate with machines on the Internet and intranet. For more information, see Ports used by ArcGIS Server.

DNS hostname entry

ArcGIS for Server must be installed on a machine that has a 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.