Configure an Amazon EC2 instance to serve a tunneled RStudio Server instance (from a Unix client)

confEc2RServer.bash

#!/bin/bash

# on local
pempath="$1"
ec2target="$2"

ssh -T -i "${pempath}" -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no ubuntu@${ec2target} << 'EOBLOCK'
# on remote machine
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade
# https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-r-on-ubuntu-16-04-2
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,i386] https://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu xenial/'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y --allow-unauthenticated install r-base r-base-dev
sudo apt-get -y install default-jre default-jdk
sudo apt-get -y install gdebi postgresql postgresql-contrib pgadmin3 libpq-dev whois imagemagick 
sudo apt-get -y install libmagick++-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev 
sudo apt-get -y install qpdf texlive-latex-base texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-fonts-extra texlive-latex-extra texinfo
sudo apt-get -y install emacs
wget https://download2.rstudio.org/rstudio-server-1.1.383-amd64.deb
sudo gdebi -n rstudio-server-1.1.383-amd64.deb
# wget https://download2.rstudio.org/rstudio-server-1.1.442-amd64.deb
# sudo gdebi -n rstudio-server-1.1.442-amd64.deb
sudo /bin/bash -c "echo 'www-address=127.0.0.1' >> /etc/rstudio/rserver.conf"
sudo rstudio-server restart
sudo useradd -m -p `mkpasswd -m sha-512 ruser` -s /bin/bash ruser
sudo cp -r ~/.ssh ~ruser/.ssh
sudo chown -R ruser ~ruser/.ssh
sudo -u postgres createuser --superuser ubuntu
sudo -u postgres createdb ubuntu
sudo -u postgres createuser ruser
sudo -u postgres createdb ruser
echo "ALTER USER ruser WITH PASSWORD 'ruser';" | sudo -u postgres psql 
sudo R CMD javareconf
EOBLOCK

echo "SWITCHING TO TUNNEL MODE"
# on local
ssh -i "${pempath}" -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -N -L 8787:127.0.0.1:8787 ruser@${ec2target}
# visit http://127.0.0.1:8787 user ruser password ruser

Notes on how to use the script here.
This configuration includes, R, RStudio Server, Java, PostgreSQL, ImageMagic, and Latex.

If the remote machine needs a grub update you need to.

1. control-C out
2. ssh into the machine my hand and run:
   ssh ubuntu@MACHINENAME
   sudo dpkg --configure -a
   sudo apt-get -y upgrade
   sudo reboot now
   # say yes to any interactive prompts- I leave the GUB "as is"
3. try the script again

Do you happen to have a similar recipe for building a docker image? Trying to adjust your script was not very successful :(

Sorry, I haven't been working on a project that works this way. Perhaps this project has what you want: https://github.com/rocker-org/rocker-paper

Thanks for the pointer. I have been looking at the Rocker's direction, but so far with no success...