Overview

When hosting Cerebro on a web server, it can be useful to control who has access to it, especially, when it is pre-loaded with a data set (see vignette('launch_cerebro_with_pre-loaded_data_set')). This can be done with the shinymanager package, however some (minor) adjustments must be made to the source code of Cerebro.

Preparation

`app.R`

At the top of the app.R file, add the shinymanager package to be loaded alongside other packages that are required by Cerebro:

## load packages -------------------------------------------------------------##
library(shinymanager)
library(dplyr)
library(DT)
# ...

`shiny_server.R`

Add this to the top of the shiny_server.R file, before the definition of the server function starts:

user_credentials <- tibble::tribble(
   ~user,              ~password,       ~start, ~expire, ~admin,
  "user1", "reallygoodpassword1", "2020-08-01",      NA,  FALSE,
  "user2", "reallygoodpassword2", "2020-09-01",      NA,  FALSE
)

Within the definition of the server function, right at the top, add this:

res_auth <- shinymanager::secure_server(
  check_credentials = shinymanager::check_credentials(user_credentials)
)

The head of the shiny_server.R file should now look similar to this:

## define users that can access Cerebro --------------------------------------##
user_credentials <- tibble::tribble(
   ~user,              ~password,       ~start, ~expire, ~admin,
  "user1", "reallygoodpassword1", "2020-08-01",      NA,  FALSE,
  "user2", "reallygoodpassword2", "2020-09-01",      NA,  FALSE
)

## server function -----------------------------------------------------------##
server <- function(input, output, session) {
  
  ## check user authentication -----------------------------------------------##
  res_auth <- secure_server(
    check_credentials = check_credentials(user_credentials)
  )
# ...

`shiny_UI.R`

At the end of the file, after the definition of the ui function, add this:

ui <- shinymanager::secure_app(ui)

Usage

Now, when opening the Cerebro user interface, user have to authenticate themselves as one of the users in the user_credentials data frame. Of course, the use credentials can also be loaded from a file, which might be easier to manage.

Thanks to Michael Heming from the University of Münster for pointing this possibility out and sharing his implementation.

Control access to Cerebro with a login page

Roman Hillje

12 March, 2021