r-builds

This repository orchestrates tools to produce R binaries. The binaries are available as a community resource, they are not professionally supported by RStudio. The R language is open source, please see the official documentation at https://www.r-project.org/.

These binaries are not a replacement to existing binary distributions for R. The binaries were built with the following considerations:

• They use a minimal set of build and runtime dependencies.
• They are designed to be used side-by-side, e.g., on RStudio Server Pro.
• They give users a consistent option for accessing R across different Linux distributions.

These binaries have been extensively tested, and are used in production everyday on RStudio Cloud and shinyapps.io. Please open an issue to report a specific bug, or ask questions on RStudio Community.

Supported Platforms

R binaries are built for the following Linux operating systems:

• Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04
• Debian 9, 10
• CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, 8
• openSUSE 42.3, 15
• SUSE Linux Enterprise 12, 15

Quick Installation

To use our quick install script to install R, simply run the following command. To use the quick installer, you must have root or sudo privileges, and curl must be installed.

bash -c "$(curl -L https://rstd.io/r-install)"

Manual Installation

Specify R version

Define the version of R that you want to install. Available versions of R can be found here: https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/versions.json

R_VERSION=3.5.3

Download and install R

Ubuntu/Debian Linux

Download the deb package:

# Ubuntu 16.04
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/ubuntu-1604/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

# Ubuntu 18.04
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/ubuntu-1804/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

# Ubuntu 20.04
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/ubuntu-2004/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

# Debian 9
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/debian-9/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

# Debian 10
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/debian-10/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

Then install the package:

sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
sudo gdebi r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

RHEL/CentOS Linux

Enable the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux repository (RHEL/CentOS 6 and 7 only):

# CentOS / RHEL 6
sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm

# CentOS / RHEL 7
sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

Note that on RHEL 7, you may also need to enable the Optional repository:

# For RHEL 7 users with certificate subscriptions:
sudo subscription-manager repos --enable "rhel-*-optional-rpms"

# Or alternatively, using yum:
sudo yum install yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --enable "rhel-*-optional-rpms"

Download the rpm package:

# CentOS / RHEL 6
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/centos-6/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

# CentOS / RHEL 7
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/centos-7/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

# CentOS / RHEL 8
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/centos-8/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

Then install the package:

sudo yum install R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

SUSE Linux

Enable the Python backports repository (SLES 12 only):

# SLES 12
VERSION="SLE_$(grep "^VERSION=" /etc/os-release | sed -e 's/VERSION=//' -e 's/"//g' -e 's/-/_/')"
sudo zypper --gpg-auto-import-keys addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/python:/backports/$VERSION/devel:languages:python:backports.repo

Download the rpm package:

# openSUSE 42.3 / SLES 12
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/opensuse-42/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

# openSUSE 15.1 / SLES 15 SP1
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/opensuse-15/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

# openSUSE 15.2 / SLES 15 SP2
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/opensuse-152/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

Then install the package:

sudo zypper --no-gpg-checks install R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

Verify R installation

Test that R was successfully installed by running:

/opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R --version

Add R to the system path

To ensure that R is available on the system path, create symbolic links to the version of R that you installed:

sudo ln -s /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R /usr/local/bin/R 
sudo ln -s /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/Rscript /usr/local/bin/Rscript

Optional post-installation steps

You may want to install additional system dependencies for R packages. We recommend installing a TeX distribution (such as TinyTeX or TeX Live) and Pandoc. For more information on system dependencies, see system requirements for R packages.

If you want to install multiple versions of R on the same system, you can repeat these steps to install a different version of R alongside existing versions.

Developer Documentation

This repository orchestrates builds using a variety of tools. The instructions below outline the components in the stack and describe how to add a new platform or inspect an existing platform.

Adding a new platform.

Dockerfile

Create a builder/Dockerfile.platform-version (where platform-version is ubuntu-1604 or centos-7, etc.) This file must contain four major tasks:

1. an OS_IDENTIFIER env with the platform-version.
2. a step which ensures the R source build dependencies are installed
3. The awscli, 1.17.10+ if installed via pip, for uploading tarballs to S3
4. COPY and ENTRYPOINT for the build.sh file in builder/.

docker-compose.yml

A new service in the docker-compose file named according to the platform-version and containing the proper entries:

command: ./build.sh
environment:
  - R_VERSION=${R_VERSION} # for testing out R builds locally
  - LOCAL_STORE=/tmp/output # ensures that output tarballs are persisted locally
build:
  context: .
  dockerfile: Dockerfile.debian-9
image: r-builds:debian-9
volumes:
  - ./integration/tmp:/tmp/output  # path to output tarballs

Job definition

IN serverless-resources.yml you'll need to add a job definition that points to the ECR image.

rBuildsBatchJobDefinitionDebian9:
  Type: AWS::Batch::JobDefinition
  Properties:
    Type: container
    ContainerProperties:
      Command:
        - ./build.sh
      Vcpus: 4
      Memory: 4096
      JobRoleArn:
        "Fn::GetAtt": [ rBuildsEcsTaskIamRole, Arn ]
      Image: #{AWS::AccountId}.dkr.ecr.#{AWS::Region}.amazonaws.com/r-builds:debian-9

Environment variables in the serverless.yml functions.

The serverless functions which trigger R builds need to be informed of new platforms.

1. Add a JOB_DEFINITION_ARN_PlatformVersion env variable with a ref to the Job definition above.
2. Append the platform-version to SUPPORTED_PLATFORMS.

environment:
  # snip
  JOB_DEFINITION_ARN_debian_9:
    Ref: rBuildsBatchJobDefinitionDebian9
  SUPPORTED_PLATFORMS: ubuntu-1604,ubuntu-1804,debian-9,debian-10,centos-6,centos-7,centos-8,opensuse-42,opensuse-15

Makefile

In order for the makefile to push these new platforms to ECR, add them to the PLATFORMS variable near the top of the Makefile

Submit a Pull Request

Once you've followed the steps above, submit a pull request. On successful merge, builds for this platform will begin to be available from the CDN.

"Break Glass"

Periodically, someone with access to these resources may need to re-trigger every R version/platform combination. This quite easy with the serverless tool installed.

# Rebuild all R versions
serverless invoke stepf -n rBuilds -d '{"force": true}'

# Rebuild specific R versions
serverless invoke stepf -n rBuilds -d '{"force": true, "versions": ["3.6.3", "4.0.2"]}'