Managing RStudio with Docker Compose
In my previous post, I wrote about launching RStudio with Docker. While that method works fine as is, typing and remembering a long command every time you execute `docker run` is a hassle. In the future, you might also want to use various other containers alongside RStudio Server. That is where Docker Compose comes in handy.
Create a docker-compose.yml file
Create a file named `docker-compose.yml` in the same directory as the `Dockerfile` from the previous post, and open it in an editor. Just like last time, we will work inside the `Dropbox > docker` folder (e.g., `/Users/user/Dropbox/docker` on Mac, or `D:\Dropbox\R\docker` on Windows).
Last time, when running `docker build` and `docker run`, we wrote:
docker build -t geo:geospatial .Code language: CSS (css)docker run -p 8787:8787 -v C:\Users\user\Dropbox\R\:/home/rstudio -d geo:geospatialCode language: JavaScript (javascript)Setting this up in `docker-compose.yml` looks like this:
version: '3'
services:
rstudio:
build: .
image: geo:geospatial
container_name: geo
ports:
- 8787:8787
environment:
TZ: Asia/Tokyo
volumes:
- ../R:/home/rstudio
tty: true
stdin_open: trueCode language: JavaScript (javascript)Remember to put a single space after each colon (`:`) and dash (`-`). For example, in `version: '3'`, there is a space between `version:` and `'3'`. Similarly, `build: .` requires a space before the dot (`.`). Follow this as a strict formatting rule.
Also, this time I specified `volumes` using a relative path. If you want to set `C:\Users\user\Dropbox\R` as the RStudio home directory, since you are currently in `C:\Users\user\Dropbox\docker`, you use `..` to move up one level (to `C:\Users\user\Dropbox\`) and then specify the `/R` directory.
Using a relative path makes the code independent of the host machine's environment. Now you can manage the setup on both Mac and Windows using the exact same `docker-compose.yml` file.
Build with docker-compose up -d
This step is the same as with standard Docker. Open Terminal on Mac, or TeraTerm or Windows Terminal on Windows. Navigate to the directory containing your `Dockerfile`.
# 自分（Mac）の場合 /Users/user から /Users/user/Dropbox/docker へ移動
cd Dropbox
cd dockerCode language: PHP (php)Once you are in the directory with your `Dockerfile` and `docker-compose.yml`, simply type and run `docker-compose up -d` instead of `docker build` and `docker run`. That's all it takes.
# /Users/user/Dropbox/docker
docker-compose up -dCode language: PHP (php)If you get an error, first check that you haven't forgotten the spaces mentioned earlier. If everything goes well, you should be able to connect to RStudio at http://localhost:8787 just like in the previous setup.
If you see an error like:
ERROR: You must set a unique PASSWORD first!! e.g. run with:
docker run -e PASSWORD=<YOUR_PASS> -p 8787:8787 rocker/geospatialCode language: HTML, XML (xml)you will need to set a password separately. Add the `environment` option to the `.yml` file you created earlier:
version: '3'
services:
rstudio:
build: .
image: geo:geospatial
container_name: geo
ports:
- 8787:8787
environment:
PASSWORD: YOUR_PASS
TZ: Asia/Tokyo
volumes:
- ../R:/home/rstudio
tty: true
stdin_open: trueCode language: JavaScript (javascript)Replace `YOUR_PASS` with any password you like.
I have skipped the finer details, but this gives you the general idea.
For this post, I referred to the Docker course ((Docker Course Taught from Scratch by a US AI Developer. Udemy. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://www.udemy.com/course/aidocker/)) by US-based AI developer Kameleon ((Kame @ US 🇺🇸 Data Scientist / Running the "DataScienceHub" community (@usdatascientist) / Twitter. Twitter. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://twitter.com/usdatascientist)). The course uses `docker-compose` to set up a web application (Rails) development environment, and I adapted that approach here to configure RStudio.
On a slight tangent, I used to use Monaca ((Monaca – App development for everyone. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://ja.monaca.io/)) for app development. It was easy to use, too, but I also want to build my own web app development environment on Docker. I plan to keep studying and preparing for that little by little.