Self-hosting Requal (Requal server installation)

[hlageek]

Tips for self-hosted Requal server installation.

[martin-hajek]

My installation of Requal on Ubuntu Server 24.04 (running as a virtual machine on my laptop)

Server requirements:
Ubuntu server 24.04 installation requirements
Minimum 10 GB, preferably 20 GB of free space


1. Create a user shiny and add her to the sudo group
(After the installation, the shiny user will be removed from this group again.)

admin@virtual-server:~$ sudo adduser shiny

admin@virtual-server:~$ sudo adduser shiny sudo

Switch the user to shiny

admin@virtual-server:~$ su - shiny

2. Install additional linux packages

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo apt install make build-essential libz-dev libpq-dev

3. Install PostgreSQL (https://documentation.ubuntu.com/server/how-to/databases/install-postgresql/)

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo apt install postgresql

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo systemctl enable postgresql

In postgres, create a shiny user and a requal database

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo -u postgres psql

In the database prompt

postgres=# CREATE USER shiny WITH PASSWORD 'password';

postgres=# ALTER USER shiny WITH SUPERUSER;

postgres=# CREATE DATABASE requal;

postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE requal TO shiny;

postgres=# \q

4. Install R (https://cloud.r-project.org/)

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo apt update -qq

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo apt install --no-install-recommends software-properties-common dirmngr

shiny@virtual-server:~$ wget -qO- https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/marutter_pubkey.asc | shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo tee -a /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/cran_ubuntu_key.asc

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs)-cran40/"

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo apt install --no-install-recommends r-base

5. Create a directory /srv/shiny-server/ and make it the home directory of the user shiny

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo logout

admin@virtual-server:~$ sudo mkdir /srv/shiny-server/

admin@virtual-server:~$ sudo usermod -d /srv/shiny-server/ -m shiny

admin@virtual-server:~$ sudo chown -R shiny:shiny /srv/shiny-server

su - shiny

6. Install RStudio Server
Follow instructions on https://posit.co/download/rstudio-server/
The steps below are from December 2024.
shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo apt-get install gdebi-core

shiny@virtual-server:~$ wget https://download2.rstudio.org/server/jammy/amd64/rstudio-server-2024.09.1-394-amd64.deb

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo gdebi rstudio-server-2024.09.1-394-amd64.deb

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo systemctl start rstudio-server

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo systemctl enable rstudio-server

7. Install the Shiny server
Follow instructions on https://posit.co/download/shiny-server/
The steps below are from December 2024.
shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo su - -c "R -e \"install.packages('shiny', repos='https://cran.rstudio.com/')\""

shiny@virtual-server:~$ wget https://download3.rstudio.org/ubuntu-18.04/x86_64/shiny-server-1.5.22.1017-amd64.deb

shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo gdebi shiny-server-1.5.22.1017-amd64.deb

8. Create a requal project in RStudio server
Open the RStudio server at your server address, port 8787, for example http://my-server-ip-address:8787/
Log in as user shiny
New project -> new directory requal -> New project -> Create directory.

9. Install Requal
In RStudio, install the renv package
install.packages("renv")

Then enter following commands

renv::install("RE-QDA/requal")

renv::snapshot(prompt = FALSE)

renv::isolate()

10. Create app.R and init.R files in the project
In the requal directory, create an R file named int.R. Fill the file with the following information:

credentials <- data.frame(
  user = "admin",
  password = "admin_password",
  # password will automatically be hashed
  admin = TRUE,
  user_id = 1,
  user_name = "administrator",
  user_mail = "[email protected]",
  project_admin = TRUE,
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)

# Init the database
shinymanager::create_db(
  credentials_data = credentials,
  sqlite_path = "requal_users.sqlite",
  passphrase = "shiny_user_password"
)

Click on Source to run the script.
You should see the requal_users.sqlite file created in the working directory.


Then create an R file named app.R. Fill the file with the following information:

requal::run_app(
  mode = "server",
  dbname = "requal",
  dbusername = "shiny",
  dbpassword = "password_to_your_database",
  credentials_path = "requal_users.sqlite",
  credentials_pass = "shiny_user_password"
)

Save the file and type in the terminal
shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo systemctl restart shiny-server


11. In your browser, type http://my-server-ip-address:3838/requal/

If Requal starts up fine, type in the terminal
shiny@virtual-server:~$ sudo deluser shiny sudo