Trouble connecting Claude Desktop to remote RStudio server

[AlmogAngel]

Hey,

I'm unable to establish a connection between the Claude Mac app and the ClaudeR when using RStudio Server (remote) with SSH tunneling.

RStudio: RStudio Server (remote)
Claude Client: Claude Mac App (local)
Connection Method: SSH tunnel (ssh -L 8788:localhost:8788 user@server)

RStudio Server addin starts successfully: ClaudeR:::claude_rstudio_addin(port = 8788)
SSH tunnel is active and working
Browser can access http://localhost:8788 and returns: {"running":true,"execution_count":0}
Claude Mac app fails to connect with error: "RStudio addin is not running"

Does ClaudeR support remote RStudio Server connections via SSH?

Best,
Almog

[IMNMV]

Hey Almog,

Great question. ClaudeR doesn't natively support remote RStudio Server yet, but your SSH tunnel setup is almost there.

The problem is that the Python MCP bridge running on your Mac discovers R sessions by reading discovery files in ~/.claude_r_sessions/. Those files are written by the R. addin on your remote server, so your local machine never sees them. The bridge defaults to localhost:8787, misses your tunneled port 8788, and reports "not running."

To fix this, you can manually create a discovery file on your Mac to point the bridge at your tunneled port. Run this in your local terminal:

mkdir -p ~/.claude_r_sessions
cat > ~/.claude_r_sessions/remote.json << 'EOF'
{
"session_name": "remote",
"port": 8788,
"pid": 99999,
"start_time": "2025-01-01 00:00:00"
}
EOF

Then restart Claude Desktop. The bridge should discover the session on port 8788 through your SSH tunnel.

When you're done, just delete the file:

rm ~/.claude_r_sessions/remote.json

Btw, the stale session cleanup checks if the PID is alive locally, and since 99999 won't match a real local process, it may get cleaned up on restart. If that happens, just set the PID to a long-running local process (like echo $PPID from your terminal) or re-create the file after starting Claude Desktop.

Remote/SSH support is something I could formalize in a future release. Let me know if this workaround gets you connected :)