README.md

In AlonzoBarnett/RcurlAWS: Interface for R to AWS focused on credential management and generic API requests.

RcurlAWS

RcurlAWS is a package for R intended to facilitate use of AWS services without external dependencies.

Primary development is around credential management (both root and STS), somewhat robust use of cerdential/config files, and generic API requests. Aws Root and Temporary credential management implemented using R6 classes. STS is supported to generate temporary credentials.

Helper functions to access AWS services via package::curl limited functionality is implemented in wrappers which obscure the worker functions In theroy any HTTP(S) style request to the AWS REST API is possible with awsRestRequest NEED TO add service-level [S3, SQS, etc.] modules NEED TO ensuring all settings in a config file are used in service calls

Install

Want to try out RcurlAWS

#Don't have the devtools package yet? To get going, check out:
#https://www.rstudio.com/products/rpackages/devtools/

#RcurlAWS is hosted on Git.
devtools::install_github("AlonzoBarnett/RcurlAWS")

Tutorial

RcurlAWS contains the typical R-style documentation, .Rd help files. So if you are unsure what to do just type ?RcurlAWS. There are credential manager classes which facilitate use of STS with Root credentials.

AWS Credentials on an EC2 using an IAM Profile

library(RcurlAWS)

#With an instance IAM profile, invoking credentials is as easy as:

awsCreds <- AWSTemporaryCredentials$new()

#Temp credential expiration/rotation is handled in the awsRestRequest, so you shouldn't need to repeatedly check.

AWS Credentials using Root access and secret from a file with profiles AND STS assumed role

library(RcurlAWS)

#Assuming you are using the default setup for config/credentials files:
rootCreds <- AWSRootCredentials$new()

rootCreds <- AWSRootCredentials$new(profileName = 'myFavProfile')

#Make an STS call to generate temp credentials.
#If you store MFA/role information in your config/credential files,
#  the information will be available in your root cred object.
awsCreds <- AWSTemporaryCredentials$new(
    rootCreds,
    roleArn = rootCreds[['profileSettings']][['ROLE_ARN']],
    MFADeviceSerialNumber = rootCreds[['profileSettings']][['MFA_SERIAL']]
)

awsRestRequest Example

awsRequest is the low level function that specialized service handlers use. Spirit of design is similar to how AWS SDKs have specific modules for each service. As a generic function, awsRestRequest, can be used to make most AWS Rest-ful API requests.

The default parameters are setup to GET an object from S3. The below example uses public data stored in AWS S3. The example object is from the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) "GDELT".

#To pull the object, we feed awsRestRequest the path (bucket name + the object key)
#This returns a raw object with a bunch of binary data.
myObj <- awsRestRequest(
    credentials = awsCreds,
    path = 'gdelt-open-data/events/20150906.export.csv')
)

#Without passing a conversion function to awsRestRequest, it is up to you to convert the raw object response to something R can understand.
myData <- read.delim(textConnection(rawToChar(myObj)), header = F)

AlonzoBarnett/RcurlAWS documentation built on May 15, 2019, 10:47 a.m.