[R] Set temporary folder for R in Rstudio server

In another post, I described how to install Rstudio server on Ubuntu. In this post, I will describe how to set temporary folders for R sessions connected to an Rstudio server. This is important, because the default temporary folder /tmp could get overload easily when multiple R sessions are connected and/or big data are stored, yielding lack of space issue.

Temporary folder in R

One can get the temporary directory set for the current R session by typing the following command in R terminal:

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tempdir()

The temporary directory was set by reading the following environment variables in order until finding one pointing to a writable directory:

• TMPDIR
• TMP
• TEMP

If none is found, the temporary folder will be set to /tmp in Linux.

So to change the tempoary folder of R sessions, one need to set one of these variables, ideally TMPDIR.

A bit introduction on R environment variable setting

When Rstudio launches R sessions, it does it under a bash login shell, so before starting R, it reads configurations from the file /etc/profile if it exists, and then first of the following:

• ~/.bash_profile
• ~/.bash_login
• ~/.profile

Therefore you can set up environment variables in any of these files.

Also, you can set environment variables in the following files:

• ${R_HOME}/etc/Renviron: affect all users
• ~/.Renviron: only impact the user whose home folder is changed

If you use Posit Workbench, you can also set environment variables in the file /etc/rstudio/rsession-profile, check this post. Note this won’t work for free Rstudio server.

The solution

You can add the following line into the file ~/.Renviron to change temporary folders.

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TMPDIR=/path/to/directory

You can also modify any of the other above-mentiond files to set the environment variables.

Don’t forget to restart R or Rstudio server for changes to take effect.

Then have a peace in data analysis, especially big data.

References

• configuration of rsession.conf: https://docs.posit.co/ide/server-pro/reference/rsession_conf.html

• configuration of rserver.conf: https://docs.posit.co/ide/server-pro/reference/rserver_conf.html

• Rstudio server management: https://docs.posit.co/ide/server-pro/1.4.1722-1/server-management.html

• R session management: https://docs.posit.co/ide/server-pro/1.4.1722-1/r-sessions.html