Setting up your R-Studio Container

ENV 872 - EDA   |   Spring 2024   |   Instructor: John Fay  |   

An alternative to using Nicholas School machines or installing R/RStudio/Git on a personal machine is to use one of Duke’s RStudio containers. We actually recommend this option as it has the following advantages:

  • There’s no need to install any software; it’s all on there for you.
  • You can access your RStudio session anywhere from any machine via a web browser. You can even leave RStudio open and it will be there right as you left it when you return. (Ideally you should save, commit changes before you leave to too long though…)

As for disadvantages,

  • You can’t print directly from these machines. Instead, you have to download files to your local machine and print from there.
  • Though very unlikely, access to these servers may be interrupted.

But if you practice good versioning with Git/GitHub, you’ll always have access to your files and can simply pull up your materials and work on a personal or NSOE machine if needed.

Creating your R-Studio container

In short, the containers offer a good system, and setting up your container is easy! Here’s how:

  1. Navigate to https://cmgr.oit.duke.edu/containers and log in.
  2. Click on the reserve RStudio button.

That’s it! You now have a dedicated RStudio machine that’s your for the semester. At the end of the semester Duke IT will send a message asking whether you want to extend your reservation.

Accessing your R-Studio container

When you need to resume work, simply return to the https://cmgr.oit.duke.edu/containers site and log in. You’ll see a button to access your existing container.