Open multiple Rstudio sessions for a single user from Jupyter

[vnijs]

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When I'm running Rstudio from a docker container it is straightforward to link a 2nd, 3rd, etc. session for a single user to a different port. If you click the Rstudio icon/launcher a 2nd time now, it disconnects the "old" Rstudio session. Is it possible to automatically assign Rstudio to another port/proxy when starting multiple session for a single user?

[yuvipanda]

Heya! Since we switched to using rserver (rather than rsession) we can't run multiple rserver processes in the same container :( I don't really know of a workaround for this, unfortunately.

What use case do you have for this?

[vnijs]

The recommended workflow in RStudio is to use "projects" (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/workflow-projects.html). It is pretty common to want to view multiple projects at the same time. E.g., for a student to review an example project and also a project for an upcoming assignment. This requires multiple Rstudio sessions.

In a locally running docker container I just run another process on another port (e.g., 8788 while another process runs on 8787). In several issues posted on GitHub I see references to something like the below and was hoping that could be used for this setting also where a new port/proxy is picked each time a user tries to start a new Rstudio session.

rserver --www-port=58107

[yuvipanda]

Hmm, I see. So right now, going to /rstudio just shows you the one running session. How would you differentiate different rstudio sessions? /rstudio/1, /2, etc? or?

[vnijs]

Simple numbering seems fine. Rstudio does something similar for a shiny app that is launches. e.g.,

/rstudio/p/7638b8dc/

[yuvipanda]

Ok, I think the way to do this is:

1. Have a new endpoint - /rserver, that will setup a new session (/rserver/<num>) and redirect you to it
2. Have /rstudio always refer to the first session - this matches current behavior.

This will need a bunch of feature additions jupyter-server-proxy:

1. Support multiple processes that are dynamically known and registered - so python code needs to be able to register other proxy URLs. This is similar to @ian-r-rose's ask in https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyter-server-proxy/issues/70
2. Some customization of the JupyterLab extension, so you can actually see all the sessions you have open right now.

[ssssssophia]

Ok, I think the way to do this is:

1. Have a new endpoint - /rserver, that will setup a new session (/rserver/<num>) and redirect you to it
2. Have /rstudio always refer to the first session - this matches current behavior.

This will need a bunch of feature additions jupyter-server-proxy:

1. Support multiple processes that are dynamically known and registered - so python code needs to be able to register other proxy URLs. This is similar to @ian-r-rose's ask in jupyterhub/jupyter-server-proxy#70
2. Some customization of the JupyterLab extension, so you can actually see all the sessions you have open right now.

May I ask how to have a new endpoint - /rserver ?

[ananthajanakiraman]

Hi, It looks like this issue is still open that we cannot open multiple rstudio session for single user from Jupyterlab. Is there any workaround in the interim?

[cdecoux]

Would love to have this too. The rest of Jupyter usage works great for multi-tasking and solely limited by the resources of the server. RStudio is the only one that has a limited ability for multi-tasking.