Sumo: An Authenticating Web Application with an Embedded R Session

Authors

Timothy T. Bergsma, Metrum Research Group LLC
Michael S. Smith, Consultant

Date of this Version

6-2012

Document Type

Article

Citation

The R Journal (June 2012) 4(1)

Comments

Copyright 2012, The R Foundation. Open access material. License: CC BY 3.0 Unported

Abstract

Sumo is a web application intended as a template for developers. It is distributed as a Java ‘war’ file that deploys automatically when placed in a Servlet container’s ‘webapps’ directory. If a user supplies proper credentials, Sumocreates a session-specific Secure Shell connection to the host and a user-specific R session over that connection. Developers may write dynamic server pages that make use of the persistent R session and user-specific file space. The supplied example plots a data set conditional on preferences indicated by the user; it also displays some static text. A companion server page al lows the user to interact directly with the R session. Sumo’s novel feature set complements previous efforts to supply R functionality over the internet.