Managing Users

RStudio-based instances now always require a custom password as an environmental variable -e:

docker run -d -p 8787:8787 -e PASSWORD=clever-custom-password rocker/rstudio

If a password is not provided, a randomly generated password will be given in the docker log for the container. Check the terminal output or use docker logs command to check.

RStudio without authentication

If you are certain you are running in a secure environment (e.g. not a publicly accessible server such as AWS instance), you can disable authentication for RStudio by setting an environmental variable DISABLE_AUTH=true, e.g.:

docker run --rm \
  -p 127.0.0.1:8787:8787 \
  -e DISABLE_AUTH=true \
  rocker/rstudio

When you visit https://localhost:8787, you will now automatically be logged in as the user rstudio without having to first enter a user name and password. (Note this example explicitly binds 127.0.0.1:8787 instead of the default 0.0.0.0:8787 that you get by using -p 8787:8787 option. This can prevent unintended external access to the instance, e.g. see SO.)

Custom usernames and user IDs

In this example, the default user remains rstudio, but now has a custom password. (The password cannot be rstudio and is no longer set by default). There is generally no need to set a custom user name, even when sharing volumes with the host user. On Linux-based hosts, sharing volumes requires that the the UID on the container match the UID on the host, otherwise any files edited or created in the container will be owned by root instead. Check the user id on the host (id) and pass this value to the docker container as an environmental variable, -e USERID=$UID, where $UID is the local user id.

By default, all rocker images run as root. This means that when running a terminal session such as R or bash, you will be a root user. This allows you to easily install additional software on the container with apt-get and perform other admin tasks. However, if you are sharing a local volume with the host, any files you create or modify will become owned by root. To avoid this, run interactive terminal sessions with the default user (docker for r-base containers, rstudio for RStudio-derived containers) when sharing volumes with the host, e.g.:

docker run --rm -ti -v $(pwd):/home/rstudio --user rstudio rocker/verse bash

or

docker run --rm -ti -v $(pwd):/home/docker --user docker r-base 

In these examples, we link the current working directory, $(pwd), to a user-owned location on the image, and specify the approriate user name.

For users accessing R through RStudio, this is not necessary. The docker container will run as root, but a user logs in through the RStudio server web interface as the non-root user “rstudio”, and thus any changes made to linked volumes will not alter file permissions on the home directory. When running RStudio from a container, do no specify a user with --user! The container needs root to launch RStudio.

Root (sudo) privileges in RStudio containers

In RStudio containers, you can also add the non-root user to the sudoers group when the container is launched simply by specifying the environmental variable, -e ROOT=true in your docker run command. Note that if you have disabled authentication and not specified a password, the password to use sudoas the rstudio user will also be rstudio.