Install Posit Workbench

Workbench

These instructions describe how to install Workbench on a Linux server.

For alternative installation instructions, see our recommended installation paths.

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. The same instructions apply if you still use a legacy RStudio Server Pro license configuration (no launcher enabled).

Prerequisites

Before you install, review the Requirements and ensure they are met.

Install Workbench

Step 1: Install R & Python

Install R

  • Follow the steps to Install R.

    Note

    Our recommended installation instructions for R allow you to make multiple versions of R available and avoid replacing existing versions of R when updating system packages.

Install Python

Installing Python is optional unless you need to run JupyterLab or Jupyter Notebook sessions, or to run Python code in any IDE.

  • Install a version of Python on the server following the steps to Install Python.

    Note

    RStudio Pro and VS Code do not require Python. However, we recommend installing Python to give users the most choice and the option to develop in Python, R, or both.

ImportantPre-installing with cloud-init or EC2 user data

If you pre-install R or Python with a cloud-init or Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) user-data script, the script runs once at first boot, before networking is fully established. If the network is not ready, apt-get and curl can fail silently and leave a server with no runtimes installed. Before you start Workbench, confirm that R and Python are present on the server. If either runtime is missing, re-run the Install R and Install Python steps.

Step 2: Download and install

  • If you need to use Workbench with SELinux in enforcing mode, follow the steps provided in the Access and Security - SELinux Configuration documentation to install the SELinux policy module.

  • Download and install Workbench version 2026.09.0:

RHEL 9 / 10
Terminal
curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/rhel9/x86_64/rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.09.0-x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.09.0-x86_64.rpm
RHEL 8
Terminal
curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/rhel8/x86_64/rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.09.0-x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.09.0-x86_64.rpm
Terminal
curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/jammy/amd64/rstudio-workbench-2026.09.0-amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./rstudio-workbench-2026.09.0-amd64.deb
Terminal
curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/opensuse15/x86_64/rstudio-workbench-2026.09.0-x86_64.rpm
sudo zypper install rstudio-workbench-2026.09.0-x86_64.rpm
Note

You download a package named rstudio-workbench, but the installed service and management commands use rstudio-server. For example, you manage the service with sudo rstudio-server restart. This naming reflects the product’s earlier name, RStudio Server Pro.

Upon installation, Workbench configuration file (/etc/rstudio/rserver.conf) contains a default configuration to run Workbench using local launcher sessions, without SSL enabled, listening on port 8787.

We strongly recommend running Workbench on a secured network or enabling TLS/SSL. Review the Secure Sockets (SSL) documentation before you continue the installation.

For air-gapped (offline) environments, download the files on a connected machine and securely copy them to the air-gapped environment following your approved process. Then, proceed to Step 3: Activate license and follow the offline activation option.

Step 3: Activate license

Run the following command to determine the status of your license:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager status

Posit recommends using license file activation. License files work well in all environments including ephemeral, container-based, or air-gapped environments. See License activation methods or the License Management page for more details.

If you have a license file:

  1. Transfer the file to the server hosting Workbench.

  2. Ensure the license file is owned by the Workbench service user and is not readable by other users, then copy the file into /var/lib/rstudio-server:

    sudo chown rstudio-server <license-file>.lic
sudo chmod 0600 <license-file>.lic
sudo cp -a <license-file>.lic /var/lib/rstudio-server/
Note

The default Workbench server-user user is rstudio-server. If your installation is configured with a different server-user, ensure the file is owned by that user.

  1. If the server uses SELinux in enforcing mode, update the security context on the license file:

    sudo restorecon /var/lib/rstudio-server/<license-file>.lic

  2. Restart Workbench for the license to take effect:

    sudo rstudio-server restart

Verify the installation

To check that the installation was successful, open Workbench in a browser at http://<SERVER-ADDRESS>:8787, replacing <SERVER-ADDRESS> with the DNS name or IP address of the server.

Verify the deployment with VIP

For a deeper check that Workbench functions end to end, use Verified Installation of Posit (VIP), a non-destructive test suite that validates login, IDE launch, sessions, package installation, data source connectivity, and runtimes against a running deployment.

Install VIP on a machine that can reach the server. VIP requires uv:

uv tool install posit-vip
vip install

Run the verification against your deployment, replacing <product-url> with the URL of your Workbench server:

vip verify --workbench-url <product-url> --interactive-auth

The --interactive-auth flag opens a browser so that VIP can complete the login flow through your identity provider. On a server without a display, use --headless-auth instead. Headless authentication drives a username and password login rather than an interactive single sign-on (SSO) session, so you must first export the credentials VIP logs in with:

export VIP_TEST_USERNAME="<username>"
export VIP_TEST_PASSWORD="<password>"
vip verify --workbench-url <product-url> --headless-auth

After the run, vip verify reports pass or fail for each check in the terminal and writes the results to report/results.json. To render a shareable HTML report of the results, run vip report. This command requires the Quarto CLI:

vip report

If any checks fail, the report identifies the failing area so that you can correct the configuration before users log in.

Note

VIP is an open-source project. See the VIP documentation for the full list of checks and configuration options.

Next steps

After you install and verify Workbench, complete the Initial Configuration to secure the server, configure IDEs, and set up authentication before users sign in.

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