Configuring an open-source R engine

To use an open-source R engine with Spotfire Statistics Services, rather than the TERR™ engine provided with the installation, you must perform additional configuration steps.

Spotfire Statistics Services version 11.4.0 was tested with open-source R version 4.0.2.

Important: Remember that when installing and configuring Spotfire Statistics Services to use a statistical engine, consider the configurations and strategies to restrict access. See Recommendations for safeguarding your environment for detailed information.

Note: Open-source R is available under separate open source software license terms and is not part of TERR. As such, open-source R is not within the scope of your license for TERR. Open-source R is not supported, maintained, or warranted in any way by TIBCO Software Inc. Download and use of open-source R is solely at your own discretion and subject to the free open source license terms applicable to open-source R.

Procedure

Stop the Spotfire Statistics Services service.
Using a text editor, open the file spserver.properties from the following location.
- Cluster: SPSERVER_SHARE/conf
- Standalone: SPSERVER_HOME/conf
(where SPSERVER_SHARE or SPSERVER_HOME is your Spotfire Statistics Services installation directory
Set the property engine.type=R.
Download and install the tested version of open-source R, as listed on the Systems Requirements page, available from TIBCO Spotfire® Products System Requirements.
You can download open-source R from http://www.r-project.org/.
Note: If you plan to build open-source R from source, it must be configured with the option –-enable-R-shlib. If you are downloading a distribution, this option was likely included in the build process.
Install the rJava package.
1. Start an open-source R desktop session.
2. In the open-source R Console, type install.packages("rJava", install_path) where install_path is the library path where open-source R running under Spotfire Statistics Services expects to find it. For example, it might be C:/Program Files/R/R-4.0.2/library.
  
  Note: If you do not supply a path for this argument, you might encounter problems using rJava.
3. Select a CRAN mirror, and then open-source R installs the rJava package.
4. Validate the rJava installation in the R console by running the following command:
  library(rJava)

Perform the following to include the path to the open-source R installation

Environment	Description
Windows	Add `-Dspserver.rhome=path-to-R` to the Java options for the service. For more information, see Using Procrun to modify a Java property. Note: The `path-to-R` where you installed open-source R, at the level of its version number, and no lower (for example, `R-N.n.n`). See the following examples. -Dspserver.rhome=C:\Program Files\R\R-4.0.2 or -Dspserver.rhome=C:\R\R-4.0.2 If jobs fail, and you see the following error in SplusServer.log, the path you provided in `-Dspserver.rhome` to your installation of open-source R is incorrect. `java.lang.IllegalStateException: Required R executable file is not found`
UNIX/Linux	Edit SPSERVER_HOME/init.d/spserver to specify `SPSERVER_RHOME=path-to-R`.

Environment

Description

Windows

Add -Dspserver.rhome=path-to-R to the Java options for the service. For more information, see Using Procrun to modify a Java property.

Note: The path-to-R where you installed open-source R, at the level of its version number, and no lower (for example, R-N.n.n).

See the following examples.

-Dspserver.rhome=C:\Program Files\R\R-4.0.2

-Dspserver.rhome=C:\R\R-4.0.2

If jobs fail, and you see the following error in SplusServer.log, the path you provided in -Dspserver.rhome to your installation of open-source R is incorrect.

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Required R executable file is not found

UNIX/Linux

Edit SPSERVER_HOME/init.d/spserver to specify SPSERVER_RHOME=path-to-R.