Up and Running with Oracle R Enterprise in 18c XE

Project Scope

The code and documentation in this repository are solely for the purpose of demonstrate the usage of Oracle R Enterprise (ORE) with Oracle Database 18c Express Edition (XE), and not intended to be used in development or production. It is provided as-is. Maintenance and support is not guaranteed.

The code was developed and known to execute successfully given the following software versions and environment.

Software	Version
Ubuntu	Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Docker	18.06.1-ce (minimum 17.12.0+)
Oracle Database	18c XE
Oracle R Enterprise	1.5.1
R	3.3.0
APEX	18.2
ORDS	18.3

Required Downloads from Oracle

Download the following files and place them in the directory: ./client/files:

• Oracle R Enterprise Client - ore-server-linux-x86-64-1.5.1.zip

Download the following files and place them in the directory: ./server/files:

• Oracle 18c XE - oracle-database-xe-18c-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

Running the Services

1. Oracle Database XE with ORE Configured

$ docker-compose up -d && docker logs -f ore-server

2. Create a User for ORE

IMPORTANT Wait till the Oracle Database has started successfully before proceeding to the next step.

$ ./bin/createUser.sh <USERNAME> <PASSWORD>

Note that the user will require additional privileges, e.g. for use with APEX:

grant create cluster to <USERNAME>;
grant create dimension to <USERNAME>;
grant create indextype to <USERNAME>;
grant create job to <USERNAME>;
grant create materialized view to <USERNAME>;
grant create operator to <USERNAME>;
grant create sequence to <USERNAME>;
grant create synonym to <USERNAME>;
grant create trigger to <USERNAME>;
grant create type to <USERNAME>;

Grant RQADMIN for elevated privileges to create scripts.

grant rqadmin to <USERNAME>;

3. Accessing the Database

Connect to the database as the user created in the earlier step. Create a simple table.

$ ./bin/dbclient.sh 
The Oracle base remains unchanged with value /opt/oracle

SQL*Plus: Release 18.0.0.0.0 - Production on Fri Nov 9 03:15:52 2018
Version 18.4.0.0.0

Copyright (c) 1982, 2018, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

SQL> connect <USERNAME>/<PASSWORD>@//ore-server:1521/XEPDB1
Connected.
SQL> create table sample(x number, y number);

Table created.

4. ORE Client

NOTE The script will build the image if necessary.

$ ./bin/rclient.sh

5. Connecting to the Database using ORE Client

Connect to the database, synchronize the schema and then list the objects. The table created earlier should be listed.

> library(ORE)
> ore.connect(
+   user='<USERNAME>'
+   , password='<PASSWORD>'
+   , conn_string='//ore-server:1521/XEPDB1'
+ )
>
> ore.ls()
> ore.ls()
character(0)
> ore.sync('RUSER')
> ore.ls()
[1] "SAMPLE"
> ore.disconnect()

Third-party Libraries in Embedded R

To use third-party libraries in embedded R script, they must be installed on the Oracle Database instance.

On the host:

$ docker exec -it -u oracle -e ORAENV_ASK=NO -e ORACLE_SID=XE \
>   ore-server bash

In the container:

$ . oraenv
$ sh ${ORACLE_HOME}/bin/ORE -e "install.packages('ggplot2')"

TODO

• Add RStudio.
• Update Docker image to allow persistence of APEX/ORDS configuration and resources.
• Clean up and reduce image/container size.

Credits

Dockerfile and scripts are based on previous works:

• https://github.com/oracle/docker-images
• https://github.com/fuzziebrain/docker-oracle-xe