Accessing the Server

Logging in

By default Posit Workbench runs on port 8787 and accepts connections from all remote clients. After installation you should therefore be able to navigate a web browser to the following address to access the server:

http://<server-ip>:8787

Posit Workbench will prompt for a username and password and will authenticate access using the PAM authentication scheme configured for the server. Some notes related to user authentication:

  • Posit Workbench will not permit logins by system users (those with ids < 100).
  • By default on Debian/Ubuntu the system default PAM profile (/etc/pam.d/other) will be used (this can be customized by creating an RStudio PAM profile at /etc/pam.d/rstudio).
  • By default, on RedHat and SLES, an RStudio PAM profile (/etc/pam.d/rstudio) that authenticates using the system username/password database is used (this can be customized by editing the profile as appropriate).
  • User credentials are encrypted using RSA as they travel over the network.

Additional details on customizing Posit Workbench authentication are provided in Authenticating Users. Details on customizing the port and enabling SSL are covered in Access and Security.

Starting a Session

Workbench

As of Posit Workbench 2022.11.0, the Local Launcher integration is enabled for new installations. Rather than starting their experience of Posit Workbench directly inside an already running RStudio Pro session, users will be navigated to the home page, where they can start a session using the New Session button.

They should then see the “New Session” dialog, which will allow them to choose a name for their session and the editor they wish to use:

The session can be started by clicking the “Start Session” button. If the “Join session when ready” box is left checked, the session will automatically be joined when it is ready.

Troubleshooting problems

If you are unable to access the server after installation, you should run the verify-installation command to output additional diagnostics:

$ sudo rstudio-server verify-installation

This command will start the server and run and connect to an RStudio Pro session. Note that this will test the correct installation of RStudio Pro and ensure that it can connect to a locally installed version of R. However, it won’t test whether networking or authentication problems are preventing access to the server.

If problems persist, you can consult the system log to see if there are additional messages there. On Debian/Ubuntu systems this will typically be located at:

/var/log/syslog

On RedHat systems this will typically be located at:

/var/log/messages

For Posit Workbench, you can also consult the server log to see if there are any errors reported there. This log is located at:

/var/lib/rstudio-server/monitor/log/rstudio-server.log

Additional log files can be found under /var/log/rstudio/rstudio-server by default. See Logging for more information.

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