Install Professional Drivers on a Linux server

Steps to install Professional Drivers on a Linux server where Workbench or Connect is installed.

Overview

Install Posit Professional Drivers on your Posit Workbench and Posit Connect servers.

Desktop installation

For installing Professional Drivers on your desktop, see the RStudio Desktop Admin Guide - Install database drivers documentation.

Requirements

Professional Drivers require one of the following Posit professional products installed:

Posit Workbench
Posit Connect

Before you begin

Review the Platform Support page to verify that Professional Drivers support your operating system.

Installation

Posit End User License Agreement

This page includes instructions for downloading Posit professional products. Download and/or use of these products is governed under the terms of the Posit End User License Agreement. By downloading you agree to the terms posted there.

Keep ODBC drivers current

We strongly recommend regularly upgrading drivers to prevent security and administrative issues. Update drivers system-wide with at least the same frequency as other Posit products.

Step 1: Install dependencies

Install an ODBC driver manager using your system package manager:

sudo yum install unixODBC unixODBC-devel

Some binary-compatible distributions, such as Rocky Linux 9, might require the --enablerepo=devel flag to install the unixODBC-devel package.

sudo apt-get install unixodbc unixodbc-dev

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) is no longer supported.

sudo zypper install unixODBC unixODBC-devel

Additional steps for using the Oracle database driver

If you work with the Oracle database, you must:

Install a supported version of the Oracle Instant Client compatible with your platform and architecture.
Link the Oracle library directory to the Professional Drivers library directory by running the following command:
```
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/<version>/client64/lib/* /opt/rstudio-drivers/oracle/bin/lib/
```

The path to Oracle libraries might differ based on your platform and installation method. For example, on Linux systems, it is commonly /usr/lib/oracle/<version>/client64/lib/, where <version> reflects your installed Oracle Instant Client version.

Manual steps on Ubuntu 24.04

The Oracle Instant Client links to the libaio library, which was renamed in Ubuntu 24.04 (noble).

Use the following workaround until Oracle updates the Instant Client:

sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libaio.so.1t64 /usr/lib/oracle/<version>/client64/lib/libaio.so.1

Additional steps for upgrading MySQL drivers to 2024.03 and higher

If you use AWS RDS for MySQL, driver version 2024.03 removes the mysql_native_password plugin, which AWS RDS for MySQL uses as the default authentication plugin. This removal breaks authentication with AWS RDS for MySQL databases unless you run the following change in advance of the ODBC driver upgrade.

Connect to the destination MySQL database using your current MySQL drivers.

Once connected, execute the following statement to change the authentication plugin for your Master Username and Master Password from the AWS Console:

ALTER USER 'ReplaceWithMasterUsername'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH caching_sha2_password by 'ReplaceWithMasterPassword' REPLACE 'ReplaceWithMasterPassword';

Run the same command for any other users that need to connect to your AWS RDS for MySQL database, using their username and password in the command.
Proceed with the driver upgrade.

Future resets of the Master Password in the AWS console revert to using mysql_native_password plugin, locking your user out of the database via Professional Drivers. Connect to the AWS RDS for MySQL database via alternate means to rerun the statement above.

Step 2: Download and install

Download and install Professional Drivers:

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/drivers/7C152C12/installer/rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.el.x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install ./rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.el.x86_64.rpm

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/drivers/7C152C12/installer/rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.el.aarch64.rpm
sudo yum install ./rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.el.aarch64.rpm

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/drivers/7C152C12/installer/rstudio-drivers_2026.04.0_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./rstudio-drivers_2026.04.0_amd64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/drivers/7C152C12/installer/rstudio-drivers_2026.04.0_arm64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./rstudio-drivers_2026.04.0_arm64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/drivers/7C152C12/installer/rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.sles.x86_64.rpm
sudo zypper --no-gpg-checks install ./rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.sles.x86_64.rpm

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/drivers/7C152C12/installer/rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.sles.aarch64.rpm
sudo zypper --no-gpg-checks install ./rstudio-drivers-2026.04.0-1.sles.aarch64.rpm

Step 3: Configure driver locations

The drivers install to /opt/rstudio-drivers/. The /etc/odbcinst.ini configuration file specifies the ODBC driver names and locations.

View an example of this file at /opt/rstudio-drivers/odbcinst.ini.sample. The file is preconfigured with the names and locations of Professional Drivers.

Use the following commands to backup your existing /etc/odbcinst.ini file and write the contents of the example configuration file to /etc/odbcinst.ini on your system:

# Backup existing ODBC configuration file
sudo cp /etc/odbcinst.ini /etc/odbcinst.ini.bak

# Append sample ODBC configuration file into /etc/
cat /opt/rstudio-drivers/odbcinst.ini.sample | sudo tee -a /etc/odbcinst.ini

# Backup existing ODBC configuration file
sudo cp /etc/unixODBC/odbcinst.ini /etc/unixODBC/odbcinst.ini.bak

# Append sample ODBC configuration file into /etc/unixODBC/
cat /opt/rstudio-drivers/odbcinst.ini.sample | sudo tee -a /etc/unixODBC/odbcinst.ini

Step 4: Test database connectivity

You can test your database connections before creating new connections in Posit products by running isql, a command line tool for interactive SQL.

isql requires you to create a data source name (DSN) first. You might need to specify a user and password argument for connection. See isql (1) - Linux Man Pages for additional information.

The /etc/odbc.ini configuration file defines the ODBC Data Source Names (DSNs).

To create a new DSN:

Edit the file /etc/odbc.ini
Add a new entry for your desired database type by copying over the example from /opt/rstudio-drivers/odbc.ini.sample
Ensure that the Driver setting in the DSN refers to the corresponding driver name or path listed in /etc/odbcinst.ini
Modify the entry with your desired connection parameters

For example, to add a SQL Server connection:

File: /etc/odbc.ini

[test]
Driver = SQLServer
Server = my.server.name
Database = dbname
Port = 1433

To test this connection, run the following command:

isql -v test

Upgrading

Installing the latest version of Professional Drivers replaces the currently installed version.

Uninstallation

Use the following commands to uninstall Posit Professional Drivers:

sudo yum remove rstudio-drivers

sudo apt-get remove rstudio-drivers

sudo zypper rm rstudio-drivers