We built and maintain an RStudio server instance running on our Linux server. This allows anyone with an account to use RStudio with the full power of the computing hardware of our Linux server. Our RStudio server is currently running R v4.1.3 (old server) and R v4.3.1 (new server) and RStudio server v2023.06.0 Build 421 (Mountain Hydrangea release). The installation is fully stocked with most of the R packages you would ever need for bioinformatics, and more can easily be added. In order to access RStudio server on our Linux, you will first need to connect to the UPenn VPN to access our server through the Penn firewall. To do this, open your browser and navigate to UPenn's VPN client. You'll be prompted to download GlobalProtect for your computer (you'll only need to do this once). Once you have authenticated through GlobalProtect, you should be able to:
- Click HERE to access our RStudio server directly in your web browser.
- Login with the same credentials you use to access the Linux machine. Feel free to customize your RStudio server by installing any packages needed for your work. If you have any problems installing a package, reach out to Dan Beiting or Lisa Mattei for help.
- As much as possible, we use R for managing, analyzing and plotting data. This preference is largely motivated by the excellent community support for R, the exceptional RStudio interface for interacting with R, and the growing number of bioinformatics tools within the bioconductor suite of applications.
- Although we frequently use RStudio on our personal computers, it is useful to have access to a server version of RStudio, particularly when your work requires more computing power. If you have an account on our Linux cluster, then you already have access to RStudio, without having to install any additional software.