Social Science Computing Cooperative

Installing R Packages from Github on Silo

Silo cannot access the internet, but it allows for package installation from CRAN. Some R packages we may want to use are on GitHub rather than CRAN, and others exist on GitHub as development versions with more features. In order to install a package from GitHub onto Silo, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the GitHub page of the package you would like to download, such as https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2
  2. Click the green “Code” button, and then “Download ZIP”. In this example, ggplot2-main.zip is downloaded.

  1. Transfer the .zip file to Silo using Globus.
  2. Log into Silo.
  3. Open R or RStudio.
  4. Install the package with devtools::install_local("FILEPATH/PACKAGE.zip"), replacing “FILEPATH” with the path to the file, and “PACKAGE.zip” with the name of your .zip file. If the ggplot2-main.zip file is located at V:/myproject/ggplot2-main.zip, we would use the code devtools::install_local("V:/myproject/ggplot2-main.zip") to install it.

Note: To use Globus, you must have a NetID. If you do not have a NetID because you are an external collaborator, ask a colleague to perform steps 1-3 for you. They can place the package file(s) in a place you both have access to, such as your shared project directory. Then follow steps 4-6 on your own.