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Best practices for administrators

This topic provides some best practices and reminders for administrators of ArcGIS Notebook Server.

Manage your deployment

Machine resources

When a notebook is running, the container it runs in consumes resources on the ArcGIS Notebook Server site. The Standard runtime requires one CPU core and 4 GB of memory, while the Advanced runtime requires two CPU cores and 6 GB of memory. Ensure your server site has adequate capacity on its machine to support each of the portal members who have been assigned notebook privileges.

Federation

ArcGIS Notebook Server cannot function without being federated to a portal. You can't have a stand-alone ArcGIS Notebook Server site.

Once federated, do not unfederate your ArcGIS Notebook Server site unless absolutely necessary. Unfederation has serious, irreversible consequences for your server content and notebooks.

Ports

Open and protect port 11443 on your ArcGIS Notebook Server machine. Only the Web Adaptor needs to communicate with this port, as all traffic should go through the Web Adaptor.

ArcGIS Notebook Server needs access to port 7443 on the machine hosting the ArcGIS Enterprise portal with which it's federated. Port 7443 does not need to be open on the ArcGIS Notebook Server machine itself.

Docker containers will be created, by default, on ports ranging from 30001 to 31000. These ports are not exposed outside the ArcGIS Notebook Server machine. Only the Notebook Server has the need to communicate to these ports.

Networking

The Docker Engine component in your ArcGIS Notebook Server site provides the networking required for the code in ArcGIS Notebooks to access your network. If there are network connectivity issues in a running notebook, check the Docker network using the docker network command tool:

  • Use the command docker network create to recreate your network if necessary.
  • If you recreate your network, reassign it to your site's containers using the command docker network connect.

To view a list of all containers running in your site, use the command docker ps -a.

Logs

You can use ArcGIS Notebook Server logs to troubleshoot issues related to running ArcGIS Notebooks. Query the logs using the ArcGIS Notebook Server Administrator Directory. There are various log levels you can set in order to view different degrees of information.

Control access

Portal access

Strictly control who has notebook privileges in your ArcGIS Enterprise portal. Each member who creates their first notebook launches their own Docker container for notebooks to do so - a significant action that uses resources and memory on your server machine.

By default, Portal publishers do not have privileges to create and edit notebooks - only administrators do. Create one or multiple custom roles in the portal to grant notebook privileges to non-administrator members and remain careful with who is assigned a role that includes these privileges.

System access

The /directories/arcgisworkspace folder created during install must have strict access control. Only the user who installed ArcGIS Notebook Server, and the system administrators, can initially access it. This folder contains your users' private workspaces, storing data to which other users should not have access. This location also stores portal token information so that Docker containers can access it.

Shared notebooks

When opening a shared notebook as an administrator, you have administrative privileges over the notebook, including the ability to run all cells. Only open notebooks from a trusted source, and run each cell only after you have reviewed its content.

Customize your deployment

Change the default notebook template

ArcGIS Notebook Server comes with a short default notebook template, which appears when a new notebook is opened. As an administrator, you can overwrite this default template with a different notebook file customized for your organization.

To do this, author the notebook you want to use as your organization's default template, then save it to overwrite the existing template notebook, which is located at <ArcGIS Notebook Server install directory>\framework\etc\ipynb_defaults\default_new.ipynb. The notebook must be named default_new.ipynb to be used as the ArcGIS Notebook Server default template notebook.