Deployment

Introduction

This page provides an overview of the different ways to deploy ShinyProxy. It is advised to first read the Getting Started guide in order to understand the basics of ShinyProxy first.

ShinyProxy can be deployed directly on a server, making it straightforward to run and test ShinyProxy. However, to achieve a full production ready setup, some additional steps are needed (e.g. configuring TLS certificates). The ShinyProxy Operator completely automates the deployment of ShinyProxy on both pure Docker hosts and Kubernetes.

The operator has the following advantages:

zero-downtime updates of configuration
zero-downtime upgrades of ShinyProxy
uses the official ShinyProxy Docker images, which always uses the correct JDK and has optimal (memory) settings
fully integrated with Redis, providing session and app persistence
allows to deploy multiple ShinyProxy servers (e.g. to have a public and private ShinyProxy server or to achieve multi-tenancy)
resource (cpu and memory) management of the ShinyProxy containers

On top of this, running the operator on a Docker host also provides:

automatic deployment of Redis
automatic deployment and updating of monitoring stack (including Prometheus, Loki and Grafana)
automatic setup of TLS using Let’s encrypt (handled by Caddy).

On Kubernetes the operator can run multiple ShinyProxy replicas, achieving high availability and scaling.

See the ShinyProxy Operator docs to get started!

Besides using the operator, the following deployment options are supported:

JAR
Debian based systems
Red Hat based systems
Docker
Docker Swarm
Kubernetes
AWS ECS

Warning

In order to have a secure setup, make sure to follow the instructions on the Security page after you have installed ShinyProxy.

Supported Docker versions

In order to use the Docker or Docker Swarm backends, Docker must be installed on the server running ShinyProxy. It’s recommended to use the Docker binaries provided by the Docker website and not by your Linux distribution. When using Ubuntu, make sure to not use the Docker snap as this can cause problems as well.

Since version 3.2.0 ShinyProxy has experimental support for Podman.

JAR file

See the Getting Started page for detailed instructions

The most simple way to run ShinyProxy is to use the JAR file. For simple testing or demonstration purposes it’s sufficient to use

java -jar shinyproxy-3.2.0.jar

which will run ShinyProxy on port 8080.

It’s possible to use nohup to let ShinyProxy running when you log out of a system, but it’s advisable to use alternatives e.g. the .deb or .rpm packages or the containerized ShinyProxy to have it defined as a proper service.

.deb package

Use the following steps to set up and configure ShinyProxy on Debian and Ubuntu systems:

install Docker on Debian or install Docker on Ubuntu

install or upgrade the .deb package of ShinyProxy:

wget https://www.shinyproxy.io/downloads/shinyproxy_3.2.0_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./shinyproxy_3.2.0_amd64.deb

To see whether the service is up and running, use:

sudo systemctl status shinyproxy

To check the log, use:

sudo journalctl -u shinyproxy

allow the ShinyProxy user to access the Docker daemon:

sudo usermod -a -G docker shinyproxy
sudo systemctl restart shinyproxy

permanently enable the service so ShinyProxy is automatically started after a reboot:
```
sudo systemctl enable shinyproxy
```

adapt the default configuration to your needs:

sudo nano /etc/shinyproxy/application.yml
sudo systemctl restart shinyproxy

After following these steps, you an access ShinyProxy on port 8080 of your server. The default configuration allows to login using the following credentials:

username: jack and password: password
username: jeff and password: password

In order to secure ShinyProxy (or put it behind a loadbalancer or reverse proxy) check the Security page.

.rpm package

Use the following steps to set up and configure ShinyProxy on Red Hat based systems (e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Alma Linux, Rocky Linux, CentOS Stream etc):

Since version 3.2.0 ShinyProxy has experimental support for Podman.

install Docker on CentOS

install or upgrade the .deb package of ShinyProxy:

curl -O https://www.shinyproxy.io/downloads/shinyproxy_3.2.0_x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install ./shinyproxy_3.2.0_x86_64.rpm

To see whether the service is up and running, use:

sudo systemctl status shinyproxy

To check the log, use:

sudo journalctl -u shinyproxy

allow the ShinyProxy user to access the Docker daemon:

sudo usermod -a -G docker shinyproxy
sudo systemctl restart shinyproxy

permanently enable the service so ShinyProxy is automatically started after a reboot:
```
sudo systemctl enable shinyproxy
sudo systemctl enable --now docker
```

open port 8080 in firewalld:

sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=8080/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

adapt the default configuration to your needs:

sudo nano /etc/shinyproxy/application.yml
sudo systemctl restart shinyproxy

After following these steps, you an access ShinyProxy on port 8080 of your server. The default configuration allows to login using the following credentials:

username: jack and password: password
username: jeff and password: password

In order to secure ShinyProxy (or put it behind a loadbalancer or reverse proxy) check the Security page.

Docker

As mentioned in the introduction, the best way to deploy ShinyProxy on Docker is by making use of the ShinyProxy Operator. Alternatively, ShinyProxy can be deployed directly on a Docker host.

Docker Swarm

See the complete example for running ShinyProxy on a Docker Swarm cluster.

Kubernetes

The ShinyProxy Operator should be used for deploying ShinyProxy on Kubernetes, providing scalability, zero-downtime updates, high availability, multi-tenancy and more!

AWS ECS

ShinyProxy supports running apps on AWS ECS using the ECS backend. At the same time, ShinyProxy itself can also run on ECS. This is a scalable way to run ShinyProxy, without having to maintain servers or Kubernetes clusters.

See the full Terraform deployment example.