R Workbench

Description

This workspace types comes with R (the latest version of the 4.x range) preinstalled, as well as conda, which can be used to manage R environments. The ‘desktop’ flavour of this workspace (see below) also comes with the RStudio GUI application.

This workspace is suitable for users who want to run R scripts on the commandline. For most users, the RStudio catalog item, which provides in-browser access to the popular R development environment,might be more suitable.

There are various flavours of this Catalog Item:

Simply choose the one that is most convenient to you.

If needed, we can help you to automatically install certain packages when the workspace is created, so that these are available inside the workspace immediately. Please contact us for this.

Creation

Create a storage volume

If desired, first create a storage volume before creating the workspace.

See the Getting started page for more info about how and why to create a storage volume.

Create a workspace

In the Research Cloud portal click the ‘Create a new workspace’ button and follow the steps in the wizzard.

See the workspace creation manual page for more guidance.

Access

R Workbench CLI

For the R Workbench CLI (command line) flavour of this Catalog Item, you can login using SSH.

R Workbench Desktop

For the R Workbench Desktop flavour of this Catalog Item, you can login using your browser. It is also possible to login via SSH, as described above.

Usage

The first time (but only the first time) you login to a workspace of this type, miniconda will be setup for your user. You will see output like this:

--- Running install scripts at first login: executing /home/username/runonce.d/runonce_conda.sh

Once this is complete, you will have access to the conda, R and littler commands, among others.

To start using conda, run the command conda init from a terminal.

Data transfer options

See our data transfer manuals.

The recommended iBridges client for Yoda and iRODS is preinstalled.

RStudio

On the Desktop flavour of this workspace type RStudio will also be installed. You can find it in the main menu, under ‘Development’.

Installing additional software

The user has admin rights to install additional software on the system from the terminal.

Tips

Workspace security

Please take a moment to read the security recommendations for VREs.