osrm_install: Install OSRM Backend Binaries

In osrm.backend: Bindings for 'Open Source Routing Machine'

Install OSRM Backend Binaries

Description

Downloads and installs pre-compiled binaries for the OSRM backend from the official GitHub releases. The function automatically detects the user's operating system and architecture to download the appropriate files. Only the latest v5 release (v5.27.1), v6.0.0, v26.4.0 and v26.4.1 were manually tested and are known to work well; other releases available on GitHub can be installed but are not guranteed to function correctly.

Usage

osrm_install(
  version = "latest",
  dest_dir = NULL,
  force = FALSE,
  path_action = c("session", "project", "none"),
  quiet = FALSE
)

Arguments

version	A string specifying the OSRM version tag to install. Defaults to "latest". Use "latest" to automatically find the most recent stable version (internally calls osrm_check_latest_version()). Versions other than v5.27.1, v6.0.0, v26.4.0 and v26.4.1 will trigger a warning but are still attempted if binaries are available.
dest_dir	A string specifying the directory where OSRM binaries should be installed. If NULL (the default), a user-friendly, persistent location is chosen via tools::R_user_dir("osrm.backend", which = "cache"), and the binaries are installed into a subdirectory named after the OSRM version (e.g. .../cache/v26.4.1).
force	A logical value. If TRUE, reinstall OSRM even if it's already found in dest_dir. If FALSE (default), the function will stop if an existing installation is detected.
path_action	A string specifying how to handle the system PATH. One of: "session" (default): Adds the OSRM bin directory to the PATH for the current R session only. "project": Modifies the .Rprofile in the current project to set the PATH for all future sessions in that project. "none": Does not modify the PATH.
quiet	A logical value. If TRUE, suppresses installer messages and warnings. Defaults to FALSE.

Details

The function performs the following steps:

1. Queries the GitHub API to find the specified release of Project-OSRM/osrm-backend.

2. Identifies the correct binary (.tar.gz archive) for the user's OS (Linux, macOS, or Windows) and architecture (x64, arm64).

3. Downloads the archive to a temporary location.

4. Extracts the archive and locates the OSRM executables (e.g., osrm-routed, osrm-extract).

5. Copies these executables to a local directory (defaults to ⁠file.path(tools::R_user_dir("osrm.backend", which = "cache"), <version>)⁠).

6. Downloads the matching Lua profiles from the release tarball and installs them alongside the binaries.

7. Optionally modifies the PATH environment variable for the current session or project.

macOS users should note that upstream OSRM v6.x (and newer) binaries are built for macOS 15.0 (Sequoia, Darwin 24.0.0) or newer. osrm_install() automatically blocks v6+ installs on older macOS releases and, when version = "latest", selects the most recent v5 build instead while warning about the requirement. Warnings include both the marketing version and Darwin kernel so you'll see messages like ⁠macOS 13 Ventura [Darwin 22.6.0]⁠.

When installing OSRM v6.x or newer for Windows, the upstream release omits the Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB) runtime and a compatible bz2 DLL. To keep the executables runnable out of the box, osrm_install() fetches TBB from oneTBB v2022.3.0 and the BZip2 runtime from bzip2-windows v1.0.8.0, verifying their SHA-256 checksums before extraction. Without these extra libraries, the OSRM v6+ binaries shipped for Windows cannot start.

On macOS, OSRM v6.x and newer binaries also miss the bundled TBB runtime. The installer reuses the libraries from release v5.27.1 to keep the binaries functional and patches their libbz2 linkage using install_name_tool so that they load the system-provided BZip2 runtime.

Power users (including package authors running cross-platform tests) can override the auto-detected platform by setting the R options osrm.backend.override_os and osrm.backend.override_arch (e.g., options(osrm.backend.override_os = "linux", osrm.backend.override_arch = "arm64")) before calling osrm_install(). Overrides allow requesting binaries for any OS and CPU combination that exists on the GitHub releases.

Value

The path to the installation directory.

Examples

if (identical(Sys.getenv("OSRM_EXAMPLES"), "true")) {
  old <- setwd(tempdir())
  on.exit(setwd(old), add = TRUE)

  # Install the default stable version and set PATH for this session
  install_dir <- osrm_install(path_action = "session", quiet = TRUE)

  # Install for a project non-interactively (e.g., in a script)
  osrm_install(path_action = "project", quiet = TRUE, force = TRUE)

  # Clean up the project's .Rprofile and uninstall binaries
  osrm_clear_path(quiet = TRUE)
  osrm_uninstall(
    dest_dir = install_dir,
    clear_path = TRUE,
    force = TRUE,
    quiet = TRUE
  )
}

osrm.backend documentation built on April 26, 2026, 9:06 a.m.