Installing ARCPY module on Linux Python server without ArcGISServer or ArcGIS installed

[Bart-JanSchoenmakers]

Hello,

I’m looking for some help or experiences of people who installed the ArcPY package on a Linux Python server.

We have a Python Server running on a Virtual Linux Machine. On this server we would like to place the ArcPY and ArcGIS packages.

We have 2 problems. First is installation of ArcPY and the 2nd is assuring a license. ArcPY seems to be available from Conda, but installing it gives some problems. The second problem seems more complicated. The only solution I saw was an installation of ArcGIs Server. However, we do not want to do that, because ArcGIS Server is installed on a dedicated server. ArcGIS is not available for linux, only the license manager.

Has anyone any experience using arcpy on a dedicated python server on linux?

Thanks all,

Bart-Jan Schoenmakers

Statistics Portugal

[Brian_Wilson · Accepted solution]

The short answer is, you can't.

https://support.esri.com/en/technical-article/000012501

The long answer is, you have to have some licensed software installed alongside arcpy, on Linux the only option would be ArcGIS Server.

Considering how buggy ArcPy is in Windows, and how they avoid talking to me about Linux, I'd avoid ArcPy on Linux, it probably gets almost no attention from Esri.

"ArcGIS API for Python" is a better option if you can do what you need to.

If you are trying to automate a workflow there are tons of other geoprocessing tools like Geopandas and GDAL. Use those then feed the output into arcgis via the API

Update: I saw a reference that said you can use ArcGIS Engine on Linux with ArcPy. I finally found this

Product: ArcGIS Engine for Linux 10.4.1

Release Date: May 31, 2016

Support status: Retired

https://support.esri.com/en/products/developers/arcgis-engine/arcgis-engine-for-linux

They probably sold 5 copies and gave up on it.

[Bart-JanSchoenmakers]

Thanks Brian for your very complete answer. 

I've to check with my local ESRI office what are the possibilities for an additional ArcGIS Server license only to use the ArcPY. 

But as you referred the most logical will be using the ArcGIS API for Python and additional 3rd source package. 

Bart