ArcGIS For Server On Docker

“But…It works on _my_ machine !!!” How many times did you hear that ? That is exactly one of the use cases of Docker for developers - Create an exact reproducible environment for each developer, even down to the hardware specification. And, that same environment can be on premise or in the cloud.
With the advent of ArcGIS For Server 10.4, I wanted to run it on my mac so I can try out some of the new features like chaining multiple SOIs.
I could have started a Windows based VM and gone through the GUI based setup, which is a pretty straight forward process (My friend Georges G. calls this, a PhD process, Push Here Dummy). But, I wanted to automate the whole install process in a headless way (I’m sure there is a way to do that using Windows, just I do not know how, maybe a blog post for another day)
Enter Docker. After downloading the ArcGIS For Linux tarball and the license file from my.esri.com, you can build a Dockerfile that automates the whole install process in a headless way - DevOps love this - In addition, once a build is done, you can run the image on premise or in the cloud by referencing a docker-machine.
Like usual, you can check out the whole source code on how you can do this here.