osrm_start_server: Start an OSRM MLD/CH server with 'osrm-routed'

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

Start an OSRM MLD/CH server with osrm-routed

Description

Launches an osrm-routed process pointing at a localized OSRM graph (either .osrm.mldgr for MLD or .osrm.hsgr for CH/CoreCH).

Usage

osrm_start_server(
  osrm_path,
  version = FALSE,
  help = FALSE,
  verbosity = c("INFO", "ERROR", "WARNING", "NONE", "DEBUG"),
  trial = FALSE,
  ip = "0.0.0.0",
  port = 5001L,
  threads = 8L,
  shared_memory = FALSE,
  memory_file = NULL,
  mmap = FALSE,
  dataset_name = NULL,
  algorithm = NULL,
  max_viaroute_size = 500L,
  max_trip_size = 100L,
  max_table_size = 100L,
  max_matching_size = 100L,
  max_nearest_size = 100L,
  max_alternatives = 3L,
  max_matching_radius = -1L,
  quiet = FALSE,
  verbose = FALSE,
  echo_cmd = FALSE,
  input_osm = NULL
)

Arguments

osrm_path	Character(1). Path to the .osrm.mldgr or .osrm.hsgr file
version	Logical; if TRUE, prints version and exits
help	Logical; if TRUE, prints help and exits
verbosity	Character; one of ⁠"NONE","ERROR","WARNING","INFO","DEBUG"⁠
trial	Logical or integer; if TRUE or >0, quits after initialization (default: FALSE)
ip	Character; IP address to bind (default: "0.0.0.0")
port	Integer; TCP port to listen on (default: 5001). The function checks if this port is already in use by another running OSRM server (even from another session) and will stop with an error if a conflict is detected.
threads	Integer; number of worker threads (default: 8)
shared_memory	Logical; load graph from shared memory (default: FALSE)
memory_file	Character or NULL; DEPRECATED (behaves like mmap)
mmap	Logical; memory-map data files (default: FALSE)
dataset_name	Character or NULL; name of shared memory dataset
algorithm	Character or NULL; one of "MLD", "CH", or "CoreCH" (case-insensitive). If NULL (default), auto-selected based on file extension.
max_viaroute_size	Integer (default: 500)
max_trip_size	Integer (default: 100)
max_table_size	Integer (default: 100)
max_matching_size	Integer (default: 100)
max_nearest_size	Integer (default: 100)
max_alternatives	Integer (default: 3)
max_matching_radius	Integer; use -1 for unlimited (default: -1)
quiet	Logical; when TRUE, suppresses package messages.
verbose	Logical; when TRUE, routes server stdout and stderr to the R console for live debugging. Note: This can cause deadlocks in tight loops if R is busy. Defaults to FALSE, which writes logs to a temporary file.
echo_cmd	Logical; echo command line to console before launch (default: FALSE)
input_osm	Character or NULL; path to the original OSM input file (for tracking purposes). This parameter is typically used internally by osrm_start() to record the source data.

Details

The server's standard output and error streams are handled via temporary files by default to prevent deadlocks in R's single-threaded environment. This ensures reliable operation while preserving logs for debugging startup failures.

To customize logging behavior, you can use the following approaches:

• Default (Temp File): Logs are written to a temporary file. This prevents deadlocks while keeping logs available for debugging.

• Verbose Mode: Set verbose = TRUE to display logs directly in the R console. Note: This can cause deadlocks in tight loops if R is busy.

• Custom Log File: Set the osrm.server.log_file option to redirect output to a specific file: options(osrm.server.log_file = "path/to/osrm.log")

  Note: List specifications (e.g., `list(stdout = "...", stderr = "...")`)
  are deprecated and will fall back to the default temporary file behavior.
  

You can override the osrm-routed executable via options(osrm.routed.exec = "/full/path/to/osrm-routed").

Value

An OSRM job process (an osrm_server object inheriting from processx::process) for the running server (also registered internally).

Examples

if (identical(Sys.getenv("OSRM_EXAMPLES"), "true")) {
  install_dir <- osrm_install(
    version = "latest",
    path_action = "session",
    quiet = TRUE
  )

  # Build a graph then launch an OSRM server on a custom port
  pbf_path <- system.file("extdata/cur.osm.pbf", package = "osrm.backend")
  osrm_dir <- file.path(tempdir(), paste0("osrm-", Sys.getpid()))
  dir.create(osrm_dir, recursive = TRUE)
  tmp_pbf <- file.path(osrm_dir, "cur.osm.pbf")
  file.copy(from = pbf_path, to = tmp_pbf, overwrite = TRUE)

  graph <- osrm_prepare_graph(
    input_osm = tmp_pbf,
    overwrite = TRUE,
    threads = 1L,
    algorithm = "mld"
  )

  server <- osrm_start_server(
    osrm_path = graph$osrm_job_artifact,
    port = 6000,
    threads = 1L
  )

  # Later, stop the server again
  osrm_stop(server)

  osrm_uninstall(
    dest_dir = install_dir,
    clear_path = TRUE,
    force = TRUE,
    quiet = TRUE
  )
  unlink(osrm_dir, recursive = TRUE)
}

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