Accessing Bloomberg data from Rblpapi within a Docker container with terminal running on host

[bmpalatiello]

I have a Bloomberg terminal running on the host machine, how can a container with R, Rblpapi, and blpapi from Bloomberg connect to the session on the host so I can download data with the API?

[eddelbuettel]

You need to assert on your end whether such usage is within the parameters of your Bloomberg usage agreement -- there is language about data not going beyond the machine it is used on etc. A virtual machine or container on the same PC may or may not be ok.

But if look at the docs eg page 24 of the pdf you see that traffic goes to port 8194 of the machine localhost (ie: by default the same machine). You can override the host and port parameters in blpConnect() and see if your container environment can access the Bloomberg application on the host.

[ChloeTian]

I have a Bloomberg terminal running on the host machine, how can a container with R, Rblpapi, and blpapi from Bloomberg connect to the session on the host so I can download data with the API?

Hi,
Thank you for your questions.
Basically, what I'm doing is quite similar like what you have described in the question. May I ask how's it going so far? What do you do with the Bloomberg Communications Server which is named bbcomm.exe when you build your dockerfile? I guess what you use is the Bloomberg Desktop API and it needs the bbcomm.exe running when your R code running on the host. Thanks.

[cschrammel]

Hi! I'm curious if you got this working. Can you run bbcomm.exe on the host, and connect to it by using the host.docker.internal ip in your R code?