[Tutorial] How to install Shiny server on Ubuntu 22.04

R shiny is a great tool for one to present research results in a dynamic and interactive way. Today, I’d introduce how to install R shiny server on Ubuntu 22.04. The content will include installation, configuration, and connecting to R shiny server.

Installation

Here I install the compiled version by downloading from the R shiny server website. As of my writing, the Ubuntu version supports Ubuntu 18.04 and above. If no compiled version is available, one can compile it by following the instruction here.

Install dependencies

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt -y install libcurl4-openssl-dev
sudo apt -y install libssl-dev libxml2-dev libmariadbclient-dev build-essential libcurl4-gnutls-dev
sudo su - -c "R -e \"install.packages('shiny', repos='https://cran.rstudio.com/')\""

Install Shiny Server

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sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
wget https://download3.rstudio.org/ubuntu-18.04/x86_64/shiny-server-1.5.20.1002-amd64.deb
sudo gdebi shiny-server-1.5.20.1002-amd64.deb

The installation will install R shiny server as a service so it can be started, stopped using the following commands like:

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sudo systemctl start shiny-server
sudo systemctl stop shiny-server
sudo systemctl restart shiny-server
sudo systemctl status shiny-server

Also, if it installed successfully, one should be able to access the server by inputting the following url:

http://server-ip-address:3838

Configuration

For complete configuration, please refer to this document. Here I will mention how to configure the path to R if it is installed into a customized postion.

In my case, the R was installed at /opt/R/4.3/bin/R, so when visiting the shiny server, you would probably see the errors showing initialization failed, and the cause could be further found by checking the log files at /var/log/shiny-server/.

To fix this, there are two ways:

For Pro version of R shiny server, one can use the variable r_path=/path/to/R to set the R used by shiny server in /etc/shiny-server/shiny-server.conf.
For open-source community version, which was the version I installed, one can do the following:
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/home/shiny/bin # make sure /home/shiny/.profile includes this in the PATH sudo ln -s /opt/R/4.3/bin/R /home/shiny/bin/R # create a symbol link
This will creates a symbolic link to R, and the folder with the symbolic link is in the list of $PATH. Then re-access the server page should resolve the failed initialization errors. Note that the above settings assume in the server configuration, run_as shiny is set, and this is default. If not, one need to change the home folder to edit corresponding files.

Note that some posts said to set environment variable ‘R=/path/to/R’ in /home/shiny/.profile, and I tested it and it did not work.

Connect to server

As described above, one can access the shiny server by inputting

http://server-ip-address:3838

in a browser. One can also access each sample apps by inputting

http://server-ip-address:3838/sample-apps

To add one’s own shiny apps (e.g., my-app) to the server, one can copy them to the folder /srv/shiny-server/, restart the sever, and access it using the following address:

http://server-ip-address:3838/my-app/

Happy programming 😄 !

References

Install from source: https://github.com/rstudio/shiny-server/wiki/Building-Shiny-Server-from-Source
Tutorial of installing R shiny server on Ubuntu 18: https://www.john-mcallister.com/deploy-rstudio-and-shiny-server-on-ubuntu/
Shiny server configuration: https://docs.posit.co/shiny-server/

Last modified on 2023-06-30