ArcGIS Notebook Server is an ArcGIS Server role, licensed and configured for the purpose of hosting ArcGIS Notebooks. The server role uses Docker containers to host and run notebooks and provides an isolated and secure environment for the notebooks without interfering with operations of the host operating system.
Learn more about Docker and its role in ArcGIS Notebook Server
The system and hardware requirements to run ArcGIS Notebook Server are listed below. A diagnostics tool runs during the setup to help you determine if your machine meets the system requirements.
Hardware requirements
An ArcGIS Notebook Server node requires, at minimum, 8 GB of RAM.
For a production environment, 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.
Ensure that the /var directory, where ArcGIS Notebook Server stores its Docker container images locally, has at least 50 GB of available disk space. For more information, see Docker and ArcGIS Notebook Server.
Firewall settings
ArcGIS Notebook Server communicates on port 11443. You'll need to open this port on your firewall before installing the software.
To communicate with the ArcGIS Enterprise portal with which it's federated, ArcGIS Notebook Server needs access to port 7443 on the portal machine.
Note:
This component is only one part of an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment. See ArcGIS Enterprise system requirements for a diagram and links to information about the ports needed to communicate with other components in an Enterprise portal.
Temporary 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 temporary location by setting the IATEMPDIR environment variable.
File handles and process limits
ArcGIS Notebook 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 fail randomly, leading to system downtime. The number of file handles and processes you'll need varies based on the data and the number of instances (threads and processes) running. Setting a file handle minimum of 65,535 and a process minimum of 25,059 ensures 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 command (or limit -h descriptors if you're using csh). To determine the soft limits, use the ulimit -Sn -Su command (or limit descriptors if you're using csh).
To increase the soft and hard limits, you'll need to edit the /etc/security/limits.conf file with superuser access. You can add the following four lines to the file to change the limit values:
<ArcGIS Notebook Server installation user> soft nofile <file limit>
<ArcGIS Notebook Server installation user> hard nofile <file limit>
<ArcGIS Notebook Server installation user> soft nproc <process limit>
<ArcGIS Notebook Server installation user> hard nproc <process limit>
After making this change, you'll need to sign out and sign in again 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.
Operating system requirements
The following 64-bit operating systems satisfy the operating system requirements. Support is not provided for 32-bit operating systems; the setup will only proceed if the operating system is 64 bit.
| Supported operating systems | Latest update or service pack tested |
|---|---|
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server 7 | Update 8 |
Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS | 20.04.1 |
Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS | 18.04.5 |
Note:
Esri Technical Support is available for CentOS versions that provide full binary compatibility with an equivalent supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server version. As a prerequisite for logging a software defect, Esri Technical Support will attempt to reproduce the issue on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server.
| Supported operating systems | Latest update or service pack tested |
|---|---|
CentOS Linux 7 | Update 8 |
ArcGIS Notebook 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 operating system of your ArcGIS Notebook Server machines can be different from those of the other machines in your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment. The most common scenario for this is to deploy ArcGIS Notebook Server on Linux machines while the rest of the ArcGIS Enterprise deployment is on Microsoft Windows machines.
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 system versions are supported unless otherwise stated. The operating system version and updates must also be supported by the operating system provider.
To install the software, run the ArcGIS Software Authorization Wizard, or run the Check for Updates tool using the operating system graphical user interface (GUI); the X Window System package group is required.
Cloud implementations
You can deploy ArcGIS Notebook Server in the cloud. Cloud platforms allow you to add capabilities to your ArcGIS Notebook Server deployment, including resizing computer capacity and automatically distributing application network traffic across multiple instances for better performance.
Esri images
The ArcGIS Enterprise Microsoft Azure image provided by Esri includes an installation of ArcGIS Notebook Server. You can use ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure, but you must manually install Docker and configure it after installation, as Cloud Builder will not perform these steps. Currently, only single-machine ArcGIS Notebook Server sites are supported on Microsoft Azure.
Note:
Esri Technical Support is available for Esri software on cloud platforms. However, support may not be provided for Microsoft Azure machine images that have been modified beyond standard Esri or operating system updates. It's recommended that you do not modify software released by Esri.
If you require a different configuration, see the next section.
Other images
To deploy ArcGIS Notebook Server on a different operating system, different machine type, or different cloud platform from what is provided by Esri, you must install and configure the software on an instance offered by your cloud provider. The instance must meet the hardware, software, firewall, temporary space, file handle and process limits, SSL certificate, and domain name requirements described on this page. Keep in mind the following if you install and configure your own cloud instance for ArcGIS Notebook Server:
- Deploying ArcGIS Notebook Server on Windows machines in Amazon Web Services is not supported. It's recommended that you deploy the software on Ubuntu machines if you use Amazon Web Services.
- You can deploy ArcGIS Notebook Server on Azure virtual machines running either a supported Windows or Linux platform. To use Linux, Ubuntu Server LTS is recommended.
- If you deploy your own Microsoft Azure Windows instance, the Microsoft Server 2016 Datacenter with Containers image is recommended.
- Only single-machine ArcGIS Notebook Server sites are supported on Microsoft Azure.
SSL certificates
ArcGIS Notebook Server is preconfigured with a self-signed certificate that 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 ArcGIS Notebook Server to use it. This can be a domain certificate issued by your organization or a CA-signed certificate. The certificate must have a Subject Alternative Name (SAN) configured, or ArcGIS Notebook Server will not work properly.
Portal for ArcGIS also includes a preconfigured self-signed certificate. Because you'll federate an ArcGIS Notebook Server site with your portal, request a certificate from a trusted CA and configure the portal to use it.
Software prerequisites
Before installing ArcGIS Notebook Server, you must have at least a base deployment of ArcGIS Enterprise ready. During the setup process, you will federate your new ArcGIS Notebook Server site with your ArcGIS Enterprise portal. ArcGIS Notebook Server can be installed on a machine that has other ArcGIS Enterprise software (of the same version) installed.
- ArcGIS Notebook Server requires Docker runtime (17.0 or later) to be installed. Follow the steps in Install Docker for ArcGIS Notebook Server to install the appropriate edition of Docker.
- ArcGIS Notebook Server requires the following package groups to be installed, depending on the operating system:
- RHEL Server: acl and gettext
- Ubuntu Server: acl and gettext-base
RHEL Server machines
sudo yum install acl
sudo yum install gettextUbuntu Server machines
sudo apt-get install acl
sudo apt-get install gettext-baseDomain name system host name entry
ArcGIS Notebook Server must be installed on a machine that has a domain name system (DNS) host name 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.
Because you'll be federating your site with your portal, it's recommended that you configure your organization's DNS to include fully qualified domain name (FQDN) entries. The portal will request the FQDN of each site when you federate.
Supported web browsers
To use the ArcGIS Notebook Server Configuration Wizard, as well as the notebook editor, the following web browsers are supported:
- Google Chrome
- Mozilla Firefox
- Microsoft Edge