Author: Yannick Marcon
Date: 2026-05-27

# DataSHIELD Administration

#### Yannick Marcon

#### 2026-05-27

Opal is the reference implementation of the DataSHIELD infrastructure. All the DataSHIELD administration tasks can be performed programmatically using functions starting with `dsadmin.*`:

- DataSHIELD R packages management,
- creation and initialization of a DataSHIELD profile,
- DataSHIELD profile settings management,
- user and permissions management.

See also the Opal DataSHIELD Administration documentation to learn how to administrate DataSHIELD using the graphical user interface.

## Setup

Setup the connection with Opal:

    library(opalr)
    o <- opal.login("administrator", "password", "https://opal-demo.obiba.org")

## R Packages

Opal can handle clusters of R servers. R packages are handled at the cluster level (because all the R servers in a cluster are expected to be identical). See Opal and R server documentation.

List installed DataSHIELD R packages:

    dsadmin.package_descriptions(o, profile = "default")

Install a DataSHIELD R package from the configured CRAN repositories (most likely the DataSHIELD repo):

    dsadmin.install_package(o, pkg = "dsBase", profile = "default")

R packages which source code is one GitHub can be installed directly:

    dsadmin.install_github_package(o, pkg = "dsSurvival", username = "neelsoumya", ref = "v1.0.0", profile = "default")

When developing a new DataSHIELD R package, it can be built and installed as follow (from the root of the R package source directory):

    dsadmin.install_local_package(o, devtools::build(), profile = "default")

To remove a DataSHIELD R package:

    dsadmin.remove_package(o, pkg = "dsSurvival", profile = "default")

Note that removing a package does not update the DataSHIELD settings of the associated profiles. See the following sections to administrate the profiles and their settings.

## Profiles

A DataSHIELD profile is based on a R servers cluster. In the most simple setup, there is only one cluster of one R server and this cluster is called `default`, and the profile is named the same.

It is possible to define several profiles based on the same cluster. The benefit of doing this is to:

- have different configurations (allowed aggregate and assigned functions, and R option values),
- restrict access to some users/groups.

To list the DataSHIELD profiles:

    dsadmin.profiles(o)

To create a new DataSHIELD profile, to initialize it the DataSHIELD settings as declared by the installed packages and to enable it, use the following.

    # ensure the profile does not exist
    if (dsadmin.profile_exists(o, "demo"))
      dsadmin.profile_delete(o, "demo")
    # create a profile, disabled
    dsadmin.profile_create(o, "demo", cluster = "default")
    # make only dsBase and resourcer packages visible
    dsadmin.profile_init(o, "demo", packages = c("dsBase", "resourcer"))
    # ready to be used
    dsadmin.profile_enable(o, "demo")

When a DataSHIELD R package is installed but should be used only by a restricted group of users, proceed as follow:

    dsadmin.profile_perm_add(o, "demo", subject = "testers", type = "group")
    # verify permissions
    dsadmin.profile_perm(o, "demo")

## Settings

The DataSHIELD settings are defined per profile (DataSHIELD Profiles section). The settings can be minimally initialized by reading the declared settings from the installed DataSHIELD R packages. They can also be amended afterwards.

### Methods

The DataSHIELD methods define the allowed function calls and their mapping to a server side function call.

To list the aggregation functions:

    dsadmin.get_methods(o, type = "aggregate", profile = "demo")

Fully custom settings can be defined (useful for developers).

    dsadmin.set_method(o, "hello", func = function(x) { paste0("Hello ", x, "!") }, type = "aggregate", profile = "demo")
    # verfiy custom method
    dsadmin.get_method(o, "hello", type = "aggregate", profile = "demo")

A simple test of our custom `hello()` function would be:

    library(DSOpal)
    builder <- DSI::newDSLoginBuilder()
    builder$append(server = "study1",  url = "https://opal-demo.obiba.org",
                   user = "administrator", password = "password",
                   profile = "demo")
    logindata <- builder$build()
    conns <- DSI::datashield.login(logins = logindata)
    # call the hello() function on the R server
    datashield.aggregate(conns, expr = quote(hello('friends')))
    datashield.logout(conns)

### Options

The DataSHIELD R options affects the behaviour of some methods.

To modify an R option:

    dsadmin.set_option(o, "datashield.privacyLevel", "10", profile = "demo")
    # verify options
    dsadmin.get_options(o, profile = "demo")

### R Parser

An advanced setting, mostly for backward compatibility issues, is the possibility to chose which R parser should be used by Opal when validating the submitted R code (remember that only a subset of the R language is allowed). See datashield4j library documentation for possible values.

To set the legacy R parser:

    dsadmin.profile_rparser(o, "demo", rParser = "v1")

## Users and Permissions

The DataSHIELD requires permissions: permissions to access the data (whether these are in a table or a resource) and permission to use the DataSHIELD service.

### Users

To facilitate permissions maintenance, create users in appropriate group(s). Groups can represent data access and DataSHIELD service access.

    if (oadmin.user_exists(o, "userx"))
      oadmin.user_delete(o, "userx")
    # generated password
    password <- oadmin.user_add(o, "userx", groups = c("demo", "datashield"))
    # verify user
    subset(oadmin.users(o), name == "userx")

### Permissions

To set some DataSHIELD-compatible permissions (view without accessing individual-level data) to each tables of a project, use the following:

    lapply(opal.tables(o, "CNSIM")$name, function(table) {
      opal.table_perm_add(o, "CNSIM", table, subject = "demo", type = "group", permission = "view")
    })
    # verify table permissions
    opal.table_perm(o, "CNSIM", "CNSIM1")

Similarly, permissions to use all the resources of a project in a DataSHIELD context is even simpler:

    opal.resources_perm_add(o, "RSRC", subject = "demo", type = "group", permission = "view")
    # verify permissions
    opal.resources_perm(o, "RSRC")

Then grant permission to use the DataSHIELD service to a group of users:

    dsadmin.perm_add(o, subject = "datashield", type = "group", permission = "use")
    # verify permissions
    dsadmin.perm(o)

Note that it is also possible to grant permission to access a specific DataSHIELD profile (see Profiles section).

## Teardown

Good practice is to free server resources by sending a logout request:

    opal.logout(o)