Description

This cookbook will install RStudio Server along with some extras that will configure various usages. In addition to installing the server, it can optionally set up CRAN's distribution-specific repositories, configure various Nginx options (SSL, proxy, and alternate locations), as well as an alternative to the default PAM configuration that doe not rely on a local user account.

• rstudio::server will download and configure the RServer packages.
• rstudio::pam will install the PAM pam_pwdfile module. This module allows you to define username/password combinations using the mkpasswd utility. This allows you to give access to RStudio Server without creating accounts on the server itself.
• rstudio::cran will install R packages listed in node['rstudio']['cran']['packages'] using r_package from the r cookbook.
• rstudio::nginx will configure an Nginx site for RStudio. It offers the ability to proxy via a separate URL as well as basic SSL support. When coupled with rstudio::pam, you can give remote access to RStudio via Nginx over SSL to people without direct access to the server via SSH.
• rstudio::shiny will install and configure the Shiny Server packages.

Requirements

Cookbooks

The following Chef cookbooks are required:

• r
• apt
• nginx
• users

Platform

The following platforms are supported:

• Ubuntu
• Debian

By default RStudio and its related packages are installed via APT on Debian/Ubuntu. You can modify the default repository using the following attribributes.

• node['rstudio']['apt']['uri'] - The URI of the APT repository. Defaults to http://cran.stat.ucla.edu/bin/linux/ubuntu on Ubuntu and 'http://cran.stat.ucla.edu/bin/linux/debian on Debian.
• node['rstudio']['apt']['key'] - The key for the distribution. Defaults to E084DAB9 on Ubunto and 381BA480 on Debian.
• node['rstudio']['apt']['keyserver'] - The key server for the repository. Defaults to keyserver.ubuntu.com on Ubuntu and subkeys.pgp.net on Debian.

Attributes

rstudio::server

• node['rstudio']['server']['www_port'] - The port that RStudio Server binds to. Defaults to 8787.
• node['rstudio']['server']['www_address'] - The address that RStudio Server binds to. Defaults to 127.0.0.1
• node['rstudio']['server']['ld_library_path'] - The LD library path.
• node['rstudio']['server']['r_binary_path'] - The path to R.
• node['rstudio']['server']['user_group'] - User groups you'd like to restrict to. NOTE: The rstudio::pam recipe will likely ignore and/or conflict with this setting if used.
• node['rstudio']['session']['timeout'] - The session timeout in minutes. Defaults to 30.
• node['rstudio']['session']['package_path'] - The R package path.
• node['rstudio']['session']['cran_repo'] - The CRAN repository to use. Defaults to http://cran.case.edu/.

See also: RStudio Server: Configuring the Server

rstudio::pam

The rstudio::pam recipe works on top of the users cookbook, which uses data bags. In your various users data bags, put the following stanza in to create an RStudio account for them:

  "rstudio": {
    "passwd": "WQtdiGghp/GSU"
  }

You can create a password with the mkpasswd utility.

rstudio::cran

• node['rstudio']['cran']['mirror'] - The CRAN distribution repository. Defaults to http://cran.rstudio.com/. This value is used to set r-cran-repos in rsession.conf.
• node['rstudio']['cran']['packages'] - A list of CRAN packages to install using the r_package` LWRP from the r cookbook.

rstudio::nginx

• node['rstudio']['nginx']['port'] - The port to listen on. Defaults to 80. If you specify a node['rstudio']['ssl']['crt_file'] and node['rstudio']['ssl']['key_file'], this will be overridden to use 443.
• node['rstudio']['nginx']['server_name'] - You must set a server name to utilize the Nginx recipe.
• node['rstudio']['nginx']['location'] - The location you'd like to proxy RStudio requests from. Defaults to /. You could change this to /rstudio/ to change the location of RStudio.
• node['rstudio']['ssl']['crt_file'] - An SSL certificate file to use. This enables SSL.
• node['rstudio']['ssl']['key_file'] - Your SSL certificate's private key file.

NOTE: The Nginx recipe does not use HTTP-Auth. This is because RStudio will only authenticate via PAM. There is no way to turn off authentication either.

rstudio::shiny

Installs and configures Shiny Server. For more information see the documentation on configuration settings.

• node['rstudio']['shiny']['user'] - The user that Shiny will run as. Defaults to shiny.
• node['rstudio']['shiny']['www_port'] - The port that Shiny will listen on. Defaults to 8100.
• node['rstudio']['shiny']['www_address'] - The address that Shiny will listen on. Defaults to 127.0.0.1.
• node['rstudio']['shiny']['site_dir'] - The server directory. Defaults to /srv/shiny-server.
• node['rstudio']['shiny']['log_dir'] - Where the log files will reside. Defaults to /var/log/shiny-server.
• node['rstudio']['shiny']['directory_index'] - Whether or not to turn on directory indexing. Defaults to on.
• node['rstudio']['shiny']['htpasswd_file'] - Path to the username/password file to use for authentication. Defaults to /etc/shiny-server/htpasswd.
• node['rstudio']['shiny']['htpasswd_group'] - The group to use for node['rstudio']['shiny']['htpasswd_file'], which requires use of the users cookbook. Defaults to sysadmin.

Usage

The only thing you need to watch out for is that rstudio::cran is listed before rstudio::server if you'd like to use CRAN's packages for r-base and other related R packages.

  "run_list": [
    "recipe[rstudio::cran]",
    "recipe[rstudio::server]",
    "recipe[rstudio::nginx]",
    "recipe[rstudio::pam]"
  ]

This is an example configuration for a role file that sets up Nginx with SSL and modifies the default path:

  "default_attributes": {
    "rstudio": {
      "nginx": {
        "server_name": "data.example.com",
        "location": "/rstudio/"
      },
      "ssl": {
        "crt_file": "/path/to/example.crt",
        "key_file": "/path/to/example.key"
      }
    },
  }