Requirements/Dependencies

System Requirements

Arches works on Linux, Windows, or macOS. Most production implementations use Linux servers.

To begin development or make a test installation of Arches, you will need the following minimum resources:

Disk Space:

• 2GB for all dependencies and Arches.

• 8GB to store uploaded files, database backups, etc.

• Depending on how many uploaded files (images, 3d models, etc) you will have, you may need much more disk space. We advise an early evaulation of how much space you think you’ll need, and then provision twice as much just to be safe…

Memory (RAM):

• 4GB

• This recommendation is based on the fact that ElasticSearch requires 2GB to run, and as per official ElasticSearch documentation no more than half of your system’s memory should be dedicated to ElasticSearch.

• In production, you very likely need to increase your memory. In building the production (minified) frontend asset bundle, npm (all by itself!) will require at least 8GB to run. If you don’t have enough memory, npm will likely return an error, sometimes after several minutes or hours of processing. In production, you may also find it useful to allow ElasticSearch to use up to 32GB.

Software Dependencies

Arches requires the following software packages to be installed and available. Ubuntu Linux users see below for an installation script.

Python >= 3.10:

• Installation: https://www.python.org/downloads/

• Python 3.10 and later comes with pip

• Windows You must choose 32-bit or 64-bit Python based on your system architecture.

• macOS This guide works well if you wish to install via brew: https://docs.python-guide.org/starting/install3/osx/

Git >= 2.0:

• Installation: https://git-scm.com/downloads

• Windows Choose the “Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt” option during installation.

• macOS You can install Git via brew: https://brew.sh/

PostgreSQL >= 14 with PostGIS 3:

• macOS Use Postgres.app.

• Windows Use the EnterpriseDB installers, and use Stack Builder (included) to get PostGIS. After installation, add the following to your system’s PATH environment variable: C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\12\bin. Make sure you write down the password that you assign to the postgres user.

Elasticsearch 8:

• Installers: https://www.elastic.co/downloads/past-releases/elasticsearch-8-5-1

• Elasticsearch is integral to Arches and can be installed and configured many ways. For more information, see Arches and Elasticsearch.

GDAL >= 2.2.x:

• Windows Use the OSGeo4W installer, and choose to install the GDAL package (you don’t need QGIS or GRASS). After installation, add C:\OSGeo4W64\bin to your system’s PATH environment variable.

• macOS (See macOS and GDAL, GEOS below)

Node.js 16.x (recommended):

• Installation: https://nodejs.org/ (choose the installer appropriate to your operating system).

• NOTE: Arches may not be compatible with later versions of Node.js (after 16) (see discussion).

To support long-running task management, like large user downloads, you must install a Celery broker like RabbitMQ or Redis:

Brokers:

• Options: https://docs.celeryproject.org/en/stable/getting-started/first-steps-with-celery.html#choosing-a-broker

• Once you have a broker installed, read more about Task Management in Arches.

macOS and GDAL, GEOS

Satisfying GDAL and GEOS requirements for macOS installations can involve some additional complexity, especially if using the Apple M1 series of ARM-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) hardware. You’ll need to install GDAL and GEOS in preparation for installing Python libraries that need this requirement. To install GDAL and GEOS:

brew install gdal
brew install geos

Currently, GDAL version 3.8 and GEOS version 3.12 work with Arches running on macOS. Once you’ve completed installation of dependencies and have created an Arches project (see Create a Project), you will likely need to specify the paths to the GDAL and GEOS libraries in your settings.py (or settings_local.py) file. Here is an example of what to add to settings.py (or settings_local.py) in a macOS installation:

GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH = '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/gdal/3.8.4_3/lib/libgdal.34.3.8.4.dylib'
GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH = '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/geos/3.12.1/lib/libgeos_c.dylib'

Please note that the actual paths that you need to specify for GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH and GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH will vary depending on versions and the specfics of your installation of these dependencies.

Scripted Dependency Installation

For Ubuntu we maintain an ubuntu_setup.sh script to install dependencies. It works for 18.04 and 20.04, and preliminary testing shows it to be compatible with 22.04 as well.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/archesproject/arches/stable/7.5.0/arches/install/ubuntu_setup.sh
source ./ubuntu_setup.sh

You will be prompted before each dependency is installed, or use yes | source ./ubuntu_setup.sh to install all components (Postgres/PostGIS, Node/npm, and ElasticSearch).