Reference | Upgrading and rolling back the R version used in Dataiku #

Prerequisites #

Upgrading R #

When upgrading the base R version that is being used in a particular Dataiku environment, this is generally a two-step process that includes:

  • Upgrading the R distribution itself on the server (typically using the system package manager, such as yum or apt depending on the Linux OS that is being used)

  • Rebuilding the default R environment and all managed code environments (i.e. reinstall all R packages for each environment)

The latter is needed because it is important to note that binary compatibility between different versions of R is not guaranteed , which can lead to issues if these R packages are not reinstalled and R environments not rebuilt. In particular, upgrading R from v3.4 to v3.5 has been known to cause issues and result in all installed packages being broken. One such example can be seen in this Github thread .

Rebuilding the default R environment and managed code environments #

When rebuilding the default R environment (found under <dss_data_directory>/R.lib ), you will generally want to rename or remove this directory and then re-run the install-r-integration script. For more detailed instructions about how this can be done, please refer to the Rebuilding the R environment section in our R integration documentation.

As for rebuilding managed code environments, this can be done through the Dataiku user interface by navigating to the Administration > Code Envs tab, clicking on the code environment, and then selecting the “Rebuild env” option when updating the code environment.

../../_images/Rebuilding-code-environment.png

Please note that if you have manually installed additional packages in the system’s library (as root), they will also need to be rebuilt, as mentioned in the reference documentation .

Rolling back to a previous version of R #

If you had saved the previous versions of the installed packages (as suggested above when renaming the <dss_data_dir>/R.lib directory instead of deleting it), rolling back should be as simple as reinstalling the previous version of R with the appropriate system package manager and then restoring the moved-away packages. Otherwise, these packages will need to be reinstalled again.