How can I deploy a Shiny app to Shiny Server?

Question

I have created a Shiny app, which can run locally, however I would like to be able to share the apps with my collegues over the office.

I have set up a Shiny Server (free edition) on our local network, and as I go to the address, the sample app works fine. However, I have not found any information on how to deploy my app to the shiny server, only for shinyapps.io, which is not the thing I need.

Can you put me in the right direction? Do I need to copy my files via a file transfer app, or can I deploy from R directly?

Answer 1

If you have Shiny Server up and running then all you should need to do is create a folder for your Shiny App in /srv/shiny-server/ on your Shiny Server and then copy your ui.R and server.R files into that folder.

Provided the necessary R package dependencies for your Shiny app are installed on the server then your Shiny app should be accessible via a browser (just use the sample app's URL and insert your folder name)

As far as I'm aware there is no way to deploy updates to your own local Shiny Server directly from R, but you should be able to achieve this with a source control/deployment toolchain eg Git and Gitlab