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Vultr profile image Sanskriti Harmukh
Sanskriti Harmukh for Vultr

Posted on with Aashish Chaurasiya • Originally published at docs.vultr.com

Installing R and RStudio Server on Ubuntu 24.04

#r #datascience #nginx #linux

R is an open-source language for statistical computing and data analysis; RStudio Server puts a full browser-based IDE for it on a remote machine. This guide installs R from the official CRAN repository, sets up RStudio Server, secures it behind Nginx with Let's Encrypt TLS, and runs a test script with a plot.

Prerequisites: an Ubuntu 24.04 server, non-root sudo user, a domain A record (e.g. rstudio.example.com).

Install R from CRAN 

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install --no-install-recommends software-properties-common dirmngr -y
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Add and verify CRAN's key:

$ wget -qO- https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/marutter_pubkey.asc | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/cran_ubuntu_key.asc
$ gpg --show-keys /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/cran_ubuntu_key.asc
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Fingerprint should read E298A3A825C0D65DFD57CBB651716619E084DAB9.

$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs)-cran40/"
$ sudo apt install --no-install-recommends r-base -y
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Verify:

$ R --version
$ R
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> "Hello, R!"
> mean(c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5))
> q()
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Answer n when asked to save the workspace.

Install RStudio Server 

$ sudo apt install gdebi-core -y
$ wget https://download2.rstudio.org/server/jammy/amd64/rstudio-server-2025.09.2-418-amd64.deb
$ sudo gdebi rstudio-server-2025.09.2-418-amd64.deb
$ sudo rstudio-server version
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The Jammy (22.04) package works fine on Noble (24.04) — LTS releases are backward-compatible here.

Start RStudio Server 

$ sudo systemctl enable rstudio-server
$ sudo systemctl start rstudio-server
$ sudo systemctl status rstudio-server
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Secure with Nginx + Let's Encrypt 

$ sudo apt install nginx -y
$ sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/rstudio.conf
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server {
    listen 80;
    server_name rstudio.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8787;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_read_timeout 20d;
    }
}
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The long proxy_read_timeout keeps long-running RStudio sessions from getting cut off.

$ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/rstudio.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
$ sudo nginx -t
$ sudo systemctl restart nginx
$ sudo ufw allow 80,443/tcp
$ sudo certbot --nginx -d rstudio.example.com -m admin@example.com --agree-tos --no-eff-email
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Access RStudio Server

Visit https://rstudio.example.com, sign in with your Linux user account. Each user gets an isolated R environment — personal package installs don't affect other users.

Run a Test Script 

> x <- 1:10
> y <- x^2
> plot(x, y, type="b", col="red", main="Test Plot with RStudio Server")
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File → New File → R Script, then:

# Calculate summary statistics
data <- c(12, 15, 18, 22, 25, 28, 30, 35)
summary(data)

# Create a histogram
hist(data, main="Sample Data Distribution", col="steelblue")
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Run or Ctrl+Enter to execute.

Next Steps

RStudio Server is running with TLS and isolated per-user R environments. From here:

  • Add more Linux users to give teammates their own RStudio logins
  • Install commonly-needed CRAN packages system-wide so users don't duplicate installs
  • Connect to a database or object storage from within R scripts for real data-analysis workflows

For the full guide, visit the original article on Vultr Docs.

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