Install R

These instructions describe how to install R from precompiled binaries on a Linux server.

The recommended installation instructions for R covers making multiple versions of R available, and avoid replacing existing versions of R when updating system packages.

Additionally, these instructions cover installing multiple versions of R, downloading R, creating a symlink to R, etc.

Install required dependencies

To install the necessary runtime dependencies for R, enable additional repositories for third-party or source packages by using the following commands:

RHEL 9
RHEL 8

Enable the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository:

sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

Enable the CodeReady Linux Builder repository:

On-premises
Public cloud

sudo subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-9-$(arch)-rpms

# enable the CodeReady Linux Builder repository from Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI) 
sudo dnf install dnf-plugins-core
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled codeready-builder-for-rhel-9-*-rpms

Enable the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository

sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

Enable the CodeReady Linux Builder repository:

On-premises
Public cloud

sudo subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms

# enable the CodeReady Linux Builder repository from Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI) 
sudo dnf install dnf-plugins-core
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled "codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-*-rpms"

Specify R version

Consult with your R user group to determine which version/versions of R they would like installed. Once defined, set the environment variable, shown below, to the first R version they request.

Note

The CVE-2024-27322 patched versions of R >= 4.0.0 are available via the links below. If you previously installed R from these links, reinstall to obtain a patched version. See rstudio/r-builds#219 for more details.

For multiple versions of R, follow the remaining steps and repeat them for each R version required:

export R_VERSION=4.4.1

Available versions of R

Versions of R that are available include: 3.6.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 4.2.x, 4.3.x, 4.4.x

If you need to use an earlier version of R, then you will need to modify the export command shown above:

Terminal

export R_VERSION=3.X.X

Please see the CRAN index of R versions for all available versions of R.

Download and install R

Download and install the desired version of R.

RHEL 9
RHEL 8

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/rhel-9/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/centos-8/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/ubuntu-2404/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ./r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/ubuntu-2204/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ./r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/ubuntu-2004/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ./r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/debian-12/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ./r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/debian-11/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ./r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/debian-10/pkgs/r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ./r-${R_VERSION}_1_amd64.deb

curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/opensuse-155/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo zypper --no-gpg-checks install R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

Verify R installation

Test that R was successfully installed by running:

/opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R --version

Create a symlink to R

This section only applies to the first installation of R on a given system.

Skip this section for subsequent installation.

To ensure that R is available on the default system PATH variable, create symbolic links to the version of R that’s installed:

sudo ln -s /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R /usr/local/bin/R
sudo ln -s /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/Rscript /usr/local/bin/Rscript

(Optional) Install recommended packages

Posit recommends installing several (optional) system dependencies used common R packages.

Posit Package Manager can automatically detect known system dependencies and provides installation commands for supported Linux operating systems. The System Dependency Detection documentation provides additional information.

(Optional) Install multiple versions of R

To install multiple versions of R on the same server, repeat these steps to specify, download, and install a different version of R alongside existing versions.

Additional information

Refer to the rstudio/r-builds repository on GitHub for more information on these binary distributions of R.

If you need to customize how R is configured. For example, installing R at a different location than /opt/R, then follow these steps to install R from source.