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
• Debian 9
• CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7
• openSUSE 42.3, 15.0
• SUSE Linux Enterprise 12, 15

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

# Debian 9
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/debian-9/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:

# 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

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

Then install the package:

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

SUSE Linux

Enable the Science repository (SLES 12 only):

# SLES 12
sudo zypper --gpg-auto-import-keys addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/science/SLE_12/science.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 15.0 / SLES 15
wget https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/opensuse-15/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.

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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, most likely 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,centos-6,centos-7,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.

serverless invoke stepf -n rBuilds -d '{"force": true}'