---
title: "Installing the Arrow Package on Linux"
output: rmarkdown::html_vignette
vignette: >
  %\VignetteIndexEntry{Installing the Arrow Package on Linux}
  %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown}
  %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8}
---

TL;DR

In most cases, `install.packages("arrow")` should just work. There are things you can do to make the installation faster (see below). If, for any reason, it doesn't work, set the environment variable `ARROW_R_DEV=true`, retry, and share the logs with us.

----

The Apache Arrow project is implemented in multiple languages, and the R package depends on the Arrow C++ library (referred to from here on as libarrow).  This means that when you install arrow, you need both the R and C++ versions.  If you install arrow from CRAN on a machine running Windows or MacOS, when you call `install.packages("arrow")`, a precompiled binary containing both the R package and libarrow will be downloaded.  However, CRAN does not host R package binaries for Linux, and so you must choose from one of the alternative approaches.

This vignette outlines the recommend approaches to installing arrow on Linux, starting from the simplest and least customisable to the most complex but with more flexbility to customise your installation.

The intended audience for this document is arrow R package _users_ on Linux, and not Arrow _developers_.
If you're contributing to the Arrow project, see `vignette("developing", package = "arrow")` for
resources to help you on set up your development environment.  You can also find
a more detailed discussion of the code run during the installation process in the
[developers' installation docs](https://arrow.apache.org/docs/r/articles/developers/install_details.html)

> Having trouble installing arrow? See the "Troubleshooting" section below.

# Installing a release version (the easy way)

## Method 1 - Installation with a precompiled libarrow binary

As mentioned above, on macOS and Windows, when you run `install.packages("arrow")`, and install arrow from CRAN, you get an R binary package that contains a precompiled version of libarrow, though CRAN does not host binary packages for Linux.  This means that the default behaviour when you run `install.packages()` on Linux is to retrieve the source version of the R package that has to be compiled locally, including building libarrow from source. See method 2 below for details of this.

For a faster installation, we recommend that you instead use one of the methods below for installing arrow with a precompiled libarrow binary.

### Method 1a - Binary R package containing libarrow binary via RSPM/conda

```{r, echo=FALSE, out.width="30%", fig.alt = "Graphic showing R and C++ logo inside the package icon"}
knitr::include_graphics("./r_binary_libarrow_binary.png")
```

If you want a quicker installation process, and by default a more fully-featured build, you could install arrow from [RStudio's public package manager](https://packagemanager.rstudio.com/client/#/), which hosts binaries for both Windows and Linux.

For example, if you are using Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal):

```r
options(
  HTTPUserAgent =
    sprintf(
      "R/%s R (%s)",
      getRversion(),
      paste(getRversion(), R.version["platform"], R.version["arch"], R.version["os"])
    )
)

install.packages("arrow", repos = "https://packagemanager.rstudio.com/all/__linux__/focal/latest")
```

Note that the User Agent header must be specified as in the example above.
Please check [the RStudio Package Manager: Admin Guide](https://docs.rstudio.com/rspm/admin/serving-binaries/#using-linux-binary-packages) for more details.

For other Linux distributions, to get the relevant URL, you can visit
[the RSPM site](https://packagemanager.rstudio.com/client/#/repos/1/overview),
click on 'binary', and select your preferred distribution.

Similarly, if you use `conda` to manage your R environment, you can get the
latest official release of the R package including libarrow via:

```shell
conda install -c conda-forge --strict-channel-priority r-arrow
```

### Method 1b - R source package with libarrow binary

```{r, echo=FALSE, out.width="50%", fig.alt = "Graphic showing R logo in folder icon, then a plus sign, then C++ logo inside the package icon"}
knitr::include_graphics("./r_source_libarrow_binary.png")
```

Another way of achieving faster installation with all key features enabled is to use static libarrow binaries we host. These are used automatically on many Linux distributions (x86_64 architecture only), according to the [allowlist](https://github.com/apache/arrow/blob/master/r/tools/nixlibs-allowlist.txt). If your distribution isn't in the list, you can opt-in by setting the `NOT_CRAN` environment variable before you call `install.packages()`:

```{r, eval = FALSE}
Sys.setenv("NOT_CRAN" = TRUE)
install.packages("arrow")
```

This installs the source version of the R package, but during the installation process will check for compatible libarrow binaries that we host and use those if available. If no binary is available or can't be found, then this option falls back onto method 2 below (full source build), but setting the environment variable results in a more fully-featured build than default.

Except for the those built for gcc 4.8 (default on CentOS 7), the binaries include support for AWS S3 and Google Cloud Storage (GCS). These features require libcurl and openssl libraries installed separately; see below on how to install them. If you don't have these installed, the libarrow binary won't be used, and you will fall back to the full source build.

# Installing a release version (the less easy way)

## Method 2 - Installing an R source package and building libarrow from source

```{r, echo=FALSE, out.width="50%", fig.alt = "Graphic showing R inside a folder icon, then a plus sign, then C++ logo inside a folder icon"}
knitr::include_graphics("./r_source_libarrow_source.png")
```

Generally, compiling and installing R packages with C++ dependencies requires
either installing system packages, which you may not have privileges to do, or
building the C++ dependencies separately, which introduces all sorts of
additional ways for things to go wrong.

The full source build of arrow, compiling both C++ and R bindings, does handle most of the dependency management for you, but it is much slower.
However, if using binaries isn't an option for you, or you wish to fine-tune or customize your Linux installation, the
instructions in this section explain how to do that.

### Basic configuration for building from source with fully featured installation

If you wish to install libarrow from source instead of looking for pre-compiled
binaries, you can set the  `LIBARROW_BINARY` variable.

```{r, eval = FALSE}
Sys.setenv("LIBARROW_BINARY" = FALSE)
```

By default, this is set to `TRUE`, and so libarrow will only be built from
source if this environment variable is set to `FALSE` or no compatible binary
for your OS can be found.

When compiling libarrow from source, you have the power to really fine-tune
which features to install.  You can set the environment variable
`LIBARROW_MINIMAL` to `FALSE` to enable a more full-featured build including S3 support
and alternative memory allocators.

```{r, eval = FALSE}
Sys.setenv("LIBARROW_MINIMAL" = FALSE)
```

By default this variable is unset, which builds many commonly used features such as Parquet support but disables some features that are more costly to build, like S3 and GCS support. If set to `TRUE`, a trimmed-down version of
arrow is installed with all optional features disabled.

Note that in this guide, you will have seen us mention the environment variable
`NOT_CRAN` - this is a convenience variable, which when set to `TRUE`,
automatically sets `LIBARROW_MINIMAL` to `FALSE` and `LIBARROW_BINARY` to `TRUE`.

Building libarrow from source requires more time and resources than installing
a binary.  We recommend that you set the environment variable `ARROW_R_DEV` to
`TRUE` for more verbose output during the installation process if anything goes
wrong.

```{r, eval = FALSE}
Sys.setenv("ARROW_R_DEV" = TRUE)
```

Once you have set these variables, call `install.packages()` to install arrow
using this configuration.

```{r, eval = FALSE}
install.packages("arrow")
```

The section below discusses environment variables you can set before calling
`install.packages("arrow")` to build from source and customise your configuration.

### Handling libarrow dependencies

When you build libarrow from source, its dependencies will be automatically downloaded.
The environment variable `ARROW_DEPENDENCY_SOURCE` controls whether the libarrow
installation also downloads or installs all dependencies (when set to `BUNDLED`),
uses only system-installed dependencies (when set to `SYSTEM`) or checks
system-installed dependencies first and only installs dependencies which aren't
already present (when set to `AUTO`, the default).

These dependencies vary by platform; however, if you wish to install these
yourself prior to libarrow installation, we recommend that you take a look at
the [docker file for whichever of our CI builds](https://github.com/apache/arrow/tree/master/ci/docker)
(the ones ending in "cpp" are for building Arrow's C++ libaries, aka libarrow)
corresponds most closely to your setup.  This will contain the most up-to-date
information about dependencies and minimum versions.

If downloading dependencies at build time is not an option, as when building on a system that is disconnected or behind a firewall, there are a few options. See "Offline builds" below.

#### Dependencies for S3 and GCS support

The arrow package allows you to work with data in AWS S3 or in other cloud
storage system that emulate S3, as well as Google Cloud Storage.
However, support for working with S3 and GCS is not
enabled in the default source build, and it has additional system requirements. To
enable it, set the environment variable `LIBARROW_MINIMAL=false` or
`NOT_CRAN=true` to choose the full-featured build, or more selectively set
`ARROW_S3=ON` and/or `ARROW_GCS=ON`.
You also need the following system dependencies:

* `gcc` >= 4.9 or `clang` >= 3.3; note that the default compiler on CentOS 7 is gcc 4.8.5, which is not sufficient
* CURL: install `libcurl-devel` (rpm) or `libcurl4-openssl-dev` (deb)
* OpenSSL >= 1.0.2: install `openssl-devel` (rpm) or `libssl-dev` (deb)

The prebuilt libarrow binaries come with S3 and GCS support enabled, so you will need to meet these system requirements in order to use them. If you're building everything from source, the install script will check for the presence of these dependencies and turn off S3 and GCS support in the build if the prerequisites are not met--installation will succeed but without S3 or GCS functionality. If afterwards you install the missing system requirements, you'll need to reinstall the package in order to enable S3 and GCS support.

### Advanced configuration for building from source

In this section, we describe how to fine-tune your installation at a more granular level.

#### libarrow configuration

Some features are optional when you build Arrow from source - you can configure
whether these components are built via the use of environment variables.  The
names of the environment variables which control these features and their
default values are shown below.

| Name  | Description   | Default Value |
| ---| --- | :-: |
| `ARROW_S3`          | S3 support (if dependencies are met)*   | `OFF` |
| `ARROW_GCS`         | GCS support (if dependencies are met)*  | `OFF` |
| `ARROW_JEMALLOC`    | The `jemalloc` memory allocator        | `ON` |
| `ARROW_MIMALLOC`    | The `mimalloc` memory allocator        | `ON` |
| `ARROW_PARQUET`    |   | `ON` |
| `ARROW_DATASET`    |  | `ON` |
| `ARROW_JSON`    | The JSON parsing library | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_RE2`    | The RE2 regular expression library, used in some string compute functions | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_UTF8PROC` | The UTF8Proc string library, used in many other string compute functions  | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_BROTLI`  | Compression algorithm  | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_BZ2`    | Compression algorithm  | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_LZ4`    | Compression algorithm  | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_SNAPPY`    | Compression algorithm  | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_ZLIB`    | Compression algorithm | `ON` |
| `ARROW_WITH_ZSTD`    | Compression algorithm | `ON` |

#### R package configuration

There are a number of other variables that affect the `configure` script and
the bundled build script.  All boolean variables are case-insensitive.

| Name | Description | Default |
| --- | --- | :-: |
| `LIBARROW_BUILD` | Allow building from source | `true` |
| `LIBARROW_BINARY` | Try to install `libarrow` binary instead of building from source | (unset) |
| `LIBARROW_MINIMAL` | Build with minimal features enabled | (unset) |
| `NOT_CRAN` | Set `LIBARROW_BINARY=true` and `LIBARROW_MINIMAL=false` | `false` |
| `ARROW_R_DEV` | More verbose messaging and regenerates some code | `false` |
| `ARROW_USE_PKG_CONFIG` | Use `pkg-config` to search for `libarrow` install | `true` |
| `LIBARROW_DEBUG_DIR` | Directory to save source build logs | (unset) |
| `CMAKE` | Alternative CMake path | (unset) |

See below for more in-depth explanations of these environment variables.

* `LIBARROW_BINARY` : By default on many distributions, or if explicitly set to
  `true`, the script will determine whether there is a prebuilt libarrow that
  will work with your system. You can set it to `false` to skip this option
  altogether, or you can specify a string "distro-version" that corresponds to
  a binary that is available, to override what this function may discover by
  default. Possible values are: "centos-7" (gcc 4.8, no AWS/GCS support);
  "ubuntu-18.04" (gcc 8, openssl 1); "ubuntu-22.04" (openssl 3).
* `LIBARROW_BUILD` : If set to `false`, the build script
  will not attempt to build the C++ from source. This means you will only get
  a working arrow R package if a prebuilt binary is found.
  Use this if you want to avoid compiling the C++ library, which may be slow
  and resource-intensive, and ensure that you only use a prebuilt binary.
* `LIBARROW_MINIMAL` : If set to `false`, the build script
  will enable some optional features, including S3
  support and additional alternative memory allocators. This will increase the
  source build time but results in a more fully functional library. If set to
  `true` turns off Parquet, Datasets, compression libraries, and other optional
  features. This is not commonly used but may be helpful if needing to compile
  on a platform that does not support these features, e.g. Solaris.
* `NOT_CRAN` : If this variable is set to `true`, as the `devtools` package does,
  the build script will set `LIBARROW_BINARY=true` and `LIBARROW_MINIMAL=false`
  unless those environment variables are already set. This provides for a more
  complete and fast installation experience for users who already have
  `NOT_CRAN=true` as part of their workflow, without requiring additional
  environment variables to be set.
* `ARROW_R_DEV` : If set to `true`, more verbose messaging will be printed
  in the build script. `arrow::install_arrow(verbose = TRUE)` sets this.
  This variable also is needed if you're modifying C++
  code in the package: see the developer guide vignette.
* `ARROW_USE_PKG_CONFIG`: If set to `false`, the configure script won't look for
Arrow libraries on your system and instead will look to download/build them.
  Use this if you have a version mismatch between installed system libraries and
  the version of the R package you're installing.
* `LIBARROW_DEBUG_DIR` : If the C++ library building from source fails (`cmake`),
  there may be messages telling you to check some log file in the build directory.
  However, when the library is built during R package installation,
  that location is in a temp directory that is already deleted.
  To capture those logs, set this variable to an absolute (not relative) path
  and the log files will be copied there.
  The directory will be created if it does not exist.
* `CMAKE` : When building the C++ library from source, you can specify a
  `/path/to/cmake` to use a different version than whatever is found on the `$PATH`.

# Install the nightly build

Daily development builds, which are not official releases, can be installed
from the Ursa Labs repository:

```r
Sys.setenv(NOT_CRAN = TRUE)
install.packages("arrow", repos = c(arrow = "https://nightlies.apache.org/arrow/r", getOption("repos")))
```

or for conda users via:

```
conda install -c arrow-nightlies -c conda-forge --strict-channel-priority r-arrow
```

# Install from git repo

You can also install the R package from a git checkout:

```shell
git clone https://github.com/apache/arrow
cd arrow/r
R CMD INSTALL .
```

If you don't already have libarrow on your system,
when installing the R package from source, it will also download and build
libarrow for you. See the section above on build environment
variables for options for configuring the build source and enabled features.

# Installation using install_arrow()

The previous instructions are useful for a fresh arrow installation, but arrow
provides the function `install_arrow()`, which you can use if you:

* already have arrow installed and want to upgrade to a different version
* want to install a development build
* want to try to reinstall and fix issues with Linux C++ binaries

`install_arrow()` provides some convenience wrappers around the various
environment variables described below.

Although this function is part of the arrow package, it is also available as
a standalone script, so you can access it for convenience without first installing the package:

```r
source("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apache/arrow/master/r/R/install-arrow.R")
```

## Install the latest release

```r
install_arrow()
```

## Install the nightly build

```r
install_arrow(nightly = TRUE)
```

## Install with more verbose output for debugging errors


```r
install_arrow(verbose = TRUE)
```

`install_arrow()` does not require environment variables to be set in order to
satisfy C++ dependencies.

> Note that, unlike packages like `tensorflow`, `blogdown`, and others that require external dependencies, you do not need to run `install_arrow()` after a successful arrow installation.

# Offline installation

The `install-arrow.R` file also includes the `create_package_with_all_dependencies()`
function. Normally, when installing on a computer with internet access, the
build process will download third-party dependencies as needed.
This function provides a way to download them in advance.

Doing so may be useful when installing Arrow on a computer without internet access.
Note that Arrow _can_ be installed on a computer without internet access without doing this, but
many useful features will be disabled, as they depend on third-party components.
More precisely, `arrow::arrow_info()$capabilities()` will be `FALSE` for every
capability.
One approach to add more capabilities in an offline install is to prepare a
package with pre-downloaded dependencies. The
`create_package_with_all_dependencies()` function does this preparation.

If you're using binary packages you shouldn't need to follow these steps. You
should download the appropriate binary from your package repository, transfer
that to the offline computer, and install that. Any OS can create the source
bundle, but it cannot be installed on Windows. (Instead, use a standard
Windows binary package.)

Note if you're using RStudio Package Manager on Linux: If you still want to
make a source bundle with this function, make sure to set the first repo in
`options("repos")` to be a mirror that contains source packages (that is:
something other than the RSPM binary mirror URLs).

### Step 1 - Using a computer with internet access, pre-download the dependencies:
* Install the arrow package _or_ run
  `source("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apache/arrow/master/r/R/install-arrow.R")`
* Run `create_package_with_all_dependencies("my_arrow_pkg.tar.gz")`
* Copy the newly created `my_arrow_pkg.tar.gz` to the computer without internet access

### Step 2 - On the computer without internet access, install the prepared package:
* Install the arrow package from the copied file
  * `install.packages("my_arrow_pkg.tar.gz", dependencies = c("Depends", "Imports", "LinkingTo"))`
  * This installation will build from source, so `cmake` must be available
* Run `arrow_info()` to check installed capabilities

#### Alternative, hands-on approach
* Download the dependency files (`cpp/thirdparty/download_dependencies.sh` may be helpful)
* Copy the directory of dependencies to the offline computer
* Create the environment variable `ARROW_THIRDPARTY_DEPENDENCY_DIR` on the offline computer, pointing to the copied directory.
* Install the arrow package as usual.

# Troubleshooting

The intent is that `install.packages("arrow")` will just work and handle all C++
dependencies, but depending on your system, you may have better results if you
tune one of several parameters. Here are some known complications and ways to address them.

## Package failed to build C++ dependencies

If you see a message like

```
------------------------- NOTE ---------------------------
There was an issue preparing the Arrow C++ libraries.
See https://arrow.apache.org/docs/r/articles/install.html
---------------------------------------------------------
```

in the output when the package fails to install,
that means that installation failed to retrieve or build the libarrow version
compatible with the current version of the R package.

Please check the "Known installation issues" below to see if any apply, and if
none apply, set the environment variable `ARROW_R_DEV=TRUE` for more verbose
output and try installing again. Then,
please [report an issue](https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/ARROW/issues)
and include the full installation output.

## Using system libraries

If a system library or other installed Arrow is found but it doesn't match the R package version
(for example, you have libarrow 1.0.0 on your system and are installing R package 2.0.0),
it is likely that the R bindings will fail to compile.
Because the Apache Arrow project is under active development,
it is essential that versions of libarrow and the R package matches.
When `install.packages("arrow")` has to download libarrow,
the install script ensures that you fetch the libarrow version that corresponds to your R package version.
However, if you are using a version of libarrow already on your system, version match isn't guaranteed.

To fix version mismatch, you can either update your libarrow system packages to match the R package version,
or set the environment variable `ARROW_USE_PKG_CONFIG=FALSE`
to tell the configure script not to look for system version of libarrow.
(The latter is the default of `install_arrow()`.)
System libarrow versions are available corresponding to all CRAN releases
but not for nightly or dev versions, so depending on the R package version you're installing,
system libarrow version may not be an option.

Note also that once you have a working R package installation based on system (shared) libraries,
if you update your system libarrow installation, you'll need to reinstall the R package to match its version.
Similarly, if you're using libarrow system libraries, running `update.packages()`
after a new release of the arrow package will likely fail unless you first
update the libarrow system packages.

## Using prebuilt binaries

If the R package finds and downloads a prebuilt binary of libarrow,
but then the arrow package can't be loaded, perhaps with "undefined symbols" errors,
please [report an issue](https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/ARROW/issues).
This is likely a compiler mismatch and may be resolvable by setting some
environment variables to instruct R to compile the packages to match libarrow.

A workaround would be to set the environment variable `LIBARROW_BINARY=FALSE`
and retry installation: this value instructs the package to build libarrow from source
instead of downloading the prebuilt binary.
That should guarantee that the compiler settings match.

If a prebuilt libarrow binary wasn't found for your operating system but you think it should have been,
please [report an issue](https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/ARROW/issues) and share the console output.
You may also set the environment variable `ARROW_R_DEV=TRUE` for additional
debug messages.

## Building libarrow from source

If building libarrow from source fails, check the error message.
(If you don't see an error message, only the `----- NOTE -----`,
set the environment variable `ARROW_R_DEV=TRUE` to increase verbosity and retry installation.)
The install script should work everywhere, so if libarrow fails to compile,
please [report an issue](https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/ARROW/issues)
so that we can improve the script.

## Known installation issues

* On CentOS, if you are using a more modern `devtoolset`, you may need to set
the environment variables `CC` and `CXX` either in the shell or in R's `Makeconf`.
For CentOS 7 and above, both the Arrow system packages and the C++ binaries
for R are built with the default system compilers. If you want to use either of these
and you have a `devtoolset` installed, set `CC=/usr/bin/gcc CXX=/usr/bin/g++`
to use the system compilers instead of the `devtoolset`.
Alternatively, if you want to build arrow with the newer `devtoolset` compilers,
set both `ARROW_USE_PKG_CONFIG` and `LIBARROW_BINARY` to `false` so that
you build the Arrow C++ from source using those compilers.
Compiler mismatch between the arrow system libraries and the R
package may cause R to segfault when arrow package functions are used.
See discussions [here](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-8586)
and [here](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-10780).

* If you have multiple versions of `zstd` installed on your system,
installation by building libarrow from source may fail with an "undefined symbols"
error. Workarounds include (1) setting `LIBARROW_BINARY` to use a C++ binary; (2)
setting `ARROW_WITH_ZSTD=OFF` to build without `zstd`; or (3) uninstalling
the conflicting `zstd`.
See discussion [here](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-8556).

# Contributing

As mentioned above, please [report an issue](https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/ARROW/issues)
if you encounter ways to improve this. If you find that your Linux distribution
or version is not supported, we welcome the contribution of Docker images
(hosted on Docker Hub) that we can use in our continuous integration. These
Docker images should be minimal, containing only R and the dependencies it
requires. (For reference, see the images that
[R-hub](https://github.com/r-hub/rhub-linux-builders) uses.)

You can test the arrow R package installation using the `docker-compose`
setup included in the `apache/arrow` git repository. For example,

```
R_ORG=rhub R_IMAGE=ubuntu-gcc-release R_TAG=latest docker-compose build r
R_ORG=rhub R_IMAGE=ubuntu-gcc-release R_TAG=latest docker-compose run r
```

installs the arrow R package, including libarrow, on the
[rhub/ubuntu-gcc-release](https://hub.docker.com/r/rhub/ubuntu-gcc-release)
image.
