The R package RAppArmor interfaces to a number of security related methods in the Linux kernel. It supports the following functionality:

• loading and changing AppArmor profiles and hats to enforce advanced security policies
• setting RLIMIT values to restrict usage of memory, cpu, disk, etc
• setting the process priority
• switching uid/gid of the current process
• setting the affinity mask of the current process
• calling an R command with a 'timeout' to kill if it does not return with in n seconds
• doing all of the above dynamically for a single R call using the eval.secure function

This can be useful for example if to host a public service for users to run R code, or if you are paranoid about running contributed code on your machine.

The most complete documentation can be found in the latest draft for the JSS paper for this package. There is of course also the PDF manual on CRAN.

A number of short "Introduction to RAppArmor" video tutorials is available to quickly get started with AppArmor and R and wrap your head around the basic concepts. Sit back and enjoy: playlist on youtube

The package has been successfully build on:

• Ubuntu 12.04 (recommended) and up
• Debian 7 and up - install notes
• OpenSuse 12.1 and up - install notes

For Ubuntu there is a convenient installation package available through launchpad.

On Ubuntu the package is easily installed through launchpad (recommended):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:opencpu/rapparmor
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install r-cran-rapparmor

To uninstall the r-cran-rapparmor package (also recommended before upgrading):

sudo apt-get remove --purge r-cran-rapparmor

Alternatively, to manually install RAppArmor on Ubuntu:

#Install dependencies:
sudo apt-get install r-base-dev libapparmor-dev apparmor-utils

#Download and install the package:
sudo R -e 'install.packages("RAppArmor", repos="http:https://cran.r-project.org")'

#Install the profiles
cd /usr/local/lib/R/site-library/RAppArmor/
sudo cp -Rf profiles/debian/* /etc/apparmor.d/

#Load the profiles into the kernel
sudo service apparmor restart

#To disable enforcing the global R profile
sudo aa-disable usr.bin.r

For Debian, see Debian install notes. For OpenSuse, see these Suse install notes. We haven't tested other distributions (yet).

To enforce the standard policy run

sudo aa-enforce usr.bin.r

Do disable enforcing of the standard policy run:

sudo aa-disable usr.bin.r

Please read the latest draft of the JSS article to understand how to use the software.

Use the eval.secure function to dynamically evaluate a call under a certain AppArmor profile

eval.secure(list.files("/"), profile="r-user")

You can also add RLIMIT values:

A <- matrix(rnorm(1e7), 1e4);
B <- eval.secure(matrix(rnorm(1e7), 1e4), RLIMIT_AS = 100*1024*1024);

If R is running with superuser privileges, you can also evaluate a call as a certain user:

eval.secure(system('whoami', intern=TRUE), uid="jeroen")

The RAppArmor package ships with some unit tests that can be used to check if things are working properly:

library(RAppArmor)
unittests();        

See the ?unittests help page for more info.

For any problems, questions, suggestions on the installation or use of RAppArmor, please get in touch! We are very interested in hearing if anything is unclear or not working as expected.

For general help, post a question on Stack Overflow and add the following tags: rapparmor, r, apparmor.

To report bugs, either post an issue on github, or send an email to the maintainer.