If I have a multimachine site, what is the best way to restart arcgis server?
Is it harmful to go into the Windows Service manager and restart the ArcGIS Server service there?
Would I need to do this on all machines in the Site?
Is it harmful to go into the Windows Service manager and restart the ArcGIS Server service there?
Would I need to do this on all machines in the Site?
Kirk,
Restarting the "ArcGIS Server" Windows Service on each machine registered with a given ArcGIS Server "site" is a fairly heavy-handed approach. This will effectively stop all service instances and their associated ArcSOC processes, but it will also terminate the Java runtime processes that ArcGIS Server relies on.
There are more light-weight approaches for you to consider if your goal is to simply recycle your services.
You could script the restart operations using Python web requests against the ArcGIS Server Administrator REST endpoint.
Or you could manually restart each machine via the ArcGIS Server Manager web site (Under "Site" --> "Machines").
Another option is to use an administrative connection to your ArcGIS Server site via Arc Desktop. There is a nice little user-friendly UI that exposes the ability to start and stop machines in that site.
From my experience, each of the options above accomplishes the same thing in terms of recycling any ArcSOC/service instances, but restarting the Windows Service will also recycle the Java processes whereas the other approaches will not. Other factors are whether or not you intend to automate (script) the process and what level of administrative access you have to each machine registered with the ArcGIS Server site (i.e. do you have the ability to log into a machine and manipulate its Windows Services).
Hopefully one of the approaches above fits your scenario.