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 may want to increase your memory, and allow ElasticSearch to use up to 32GB.

Software Dependencies

Full dependency installation on Ubuntu 18.04: ubuntu_setup.sh

To familiarize yourself with the components and learn some important details, please read the notes below. Where necessary, OS-specific installation notes are included as well.

Python 3.7:

• Installation: https://www.python.org/downloads/
• Python 3.7 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/

PostgreSQL 12 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 7.4:  

• Installers: https://www.elastic.co/downloads/past-releases/elasticsearch-7-4-0
• Elasticsearch is integral to Arches and can be installed and configured many ways. For more information, see Arches and Elasticsearch.

JDK 8:

• Only required to support a local installation of Elasticsearch
• Installers.
• Windows Once installed, find Java on your operating system, it will be somewhere like C:\Program Files\Java\jdk*.*.*_**. Now take that full path, and add it to the JAVA_HOME system environment variable.

GDAL > 1.11.5:

• 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 Use version 3.6.1 (3.6.2 has caused trouble).

Yarn:

• Installation: https://yarnpkg.com/lang/en/docs/install
• Windows Use the .msi installer in the link above, but first install Node.js.

If you plan to use the Arches Collector Mobile app, you must also install CouchDB.

CouchDB 2.x:

• Installation: https://docs.couchdb.org/en/stable/install/index.html
• CouchDB is used to sync mobile data collection projects with your main database.
• Arches will connect to CouchDB with default credentials. However, in production you must make a new CouchDB admin after installation, and then update COUCHDB_URL = 'http://admin:admin@localhost:5984 in settings.py accordingly.