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https://github.com/markedmondson1234/appengine-rstudio

Experiment deploying Rstudio to Google AppEngine
https://github.com/markedmondson1234/appengine-rstudio

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Experiment deploying Rstudio to Google AppEngine

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README 

        
## RStudio App Engine



App Engine is a managed compute service that recently started to [support Docker environments that can run any code](https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/flexible/).  This is a demo of deploying RStudio.



App Engine offers benefits such as auto scaling that turns off the instance when you are not using it.  It reboots upon request of the application URL.



This builds on top of the [persistent RStudio image](https://cloudyr.github.io/googleComputeEngineR/articles/persistent-rstudio.html) developed for googleComputeEngineR, with which you can configure persistent GitHub/SSH keys and backups on Cloud Storage. 



## Pricing



[Pricing is here](https://cloud.google.com/appengine/pricing#flexible-environment-instances).  Flexible doesn't do a free tier yet, and the minimum is 1 instance running 24/7



A rough guide is $1.26 per 24hours per core, $0.17 per 24hours per GB of RAM.



Running a 1 core instance with 2GB of ram per day will be $1.60 for 24hours, or $0.07 an hour, $48 a month.  This is more expensive than running an equivalent GCE instance, so this solution is only worth looking at if you have more users.



## Launch



1. If you haven't got one already, set up a Google Cloud Storage bucket that will contain the R session backup data

2. Clone this repo

3. The authentication service email will be the default App Engine project one: e.g. `[email protected]` - give this at least Cloud Storage access to the bucket from step 1

4. Change this line in the `Renviron.site` to the bucket from step 1



```

GCS_SESSION_BUCKET="your bucket"

```



5. [Optional] In the `Dockerfile`, add your default username that you use on other RStudio backups by altering `your_username` and `your_password` in the below.  If you don't do this, you will be saving files under `/home/rstudio` username.



```

## add your default user and password

RUN useradd --create-home --shell /bin/bash your_username && \

    echo your_username:your_password | chpasswd

```



6. In the same directory run:



```

gcloud app deploy --project your-project

```



It takes a while (10mins +)



7. Once ready, log in at https://your-project.appspot.com with username `rstudio` and password `rstudio`, or the credentials you set in step 5. 

8. Configure Identity Aware Proxy https://console.cloud.google.com/iam-admin/iap for the App Engine project URL. [How-to guide](https://cloud.google.com/iap/docs/app-engine-quickstart).  This will add a Google OAuth2 login over the RStudio login page (much more secure)



You shuld now be able to log in and access all the files you saved under `/home/your_user` on the Cloud Service.  When first logging in, it should load any SSH and GitHub configurations, and when you create a new RStudio Project with the same name as one already saved, it should download any missing files. 



The server will turn off after some time of inactivity.  See [this link](https://cloudyr.github.io/googleComputeEngineR/articles/persistent-rstudio.html) for more details. 



## Configuration



The `app.yaml` configures how the RStudio instance performs:



```yaml

runtime: custom

env: flex

automatic_scaling:

  min_num_instances: 1

  max_num_instances: 1

  

resources:

  cpu: 2

  memory_gb: 4



```



The `Dockerfile` downloads a prepared RStudio instance with tools to persist data, and `rserver.conf` puts RStudio on port `8080` as required by App Engine, which will then route traffic onto normal web ports `80`. It then adds any environment arguments saved in `Renviron.site` - minimum it needs `GCS_SESSION_BUCKET` but you can add other stuff such as other API keys, defaults etc. here. 



## Authentication



Identity Aware Proxy https://console.cloud.google.com/iam-admin/iap for the App Engine. [How-to guide](https://cloud.google.com/iap/docs/app-engine-quickstart).



The instance uses this to add a Google OAuth2 proxy login over the top of the normal RStudio login, you can configure access



After Google Auth, you can log into RStudio using the default rstudio / rstudio login. 



## scaling config



The RStudio session disconnects on default scaling settings, as only one session is allowed per RStudio Server connection and appengine defaults to 2

https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/python/how-instances-are-managed



Configure app.yaml to get around this:



### app.yaml configuration



See how to config the [app.yaml here](https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/flexible/custom-runtimes/configuring-your-app-with-app-yaml)



Set to only 1 per instance with 30min timeout via:



```yaml

automatic_scaling:

  min_num_instances: 1

  max_num_instances: 1

```



If you want the instance to run all the time, replace basic scaling with manual scaling - but this is not worth doing as its much more expensive than running a GCE instance. 



```yaml

manual_scaling:

  instances: 1

```



Flexible containers do not support basic_scaling



### Instance size



You can set the size of the instance via the resources config.  



e.g. 



```yaml

resources:

  cpu: 2

  memory_gb: 2

```



## reference



https://cloudyr.github.io/googleComputeEngineR/articles/persistent-rstudio.html



https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/200552316-Configuring-the-Server



https://github.com/rocker-org/rocker/blob/master/rstudio/testing/Dockerfile



https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/python/an-overview-of-app-engine



## debug



```

gcloud app --project [PROJECT-ID] instances enable-debug

```