Andryas / docker_renv

Docker & renv

For those looking for speeding up the package installions in the Dockerfile and at the same use renv to control the dependencies, ill share with you an approached that i found being useful.

This approach cache all the packages in the renv.lock using buildx.

Resources

First, it is good to check the documentation in the renv package when used with docker, check it out

Second, some resources

• howisonlab/test_repo_buildx_renv
• how-to-avoid-reinstalling-packages-when-building-docker-image-for-python-project

---

How to use it

• Setup your renv ~ "R> renv::init()"
• Create your renv.lock ~ "R> renv::snapshot()"
• Build your image ~ "$ build.sh"

How it works

Dockerfile

# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1.1-experimental

FROM r-base:4.3.1

RUN R -e 'install.packages("remotes")'

ENV RENV_VERSION 1.0.3
RUN R -e 'remotes::install_github("rstudio/renv", version="${RENV_VERSION}")'

WORKDIR /project
RUN R -e "renv::init()"

COPY renv.lock renv.lock

RUN mkdir -p renv
COPY .Rprofile .Rprofile
COPY renv/activate.R renv/activate.R
COPY renv/settings.json renv/settings.json

ENV RENV_PATHS_CACHE=/renv_cache
RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/renv_cache R -e "renv::restore(exclude=c('renv'))"

build.sh

#!/bin/bash

export DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1

echo; echo "building image..."; echo
docker buildx build --platform=linux/amd64 -t teste_renv . || exit 1