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TBX: X.X, R proxy configuration during TXM work session

R cannot access internet if there is a proxy during the “Check R packages” command. ->Rserve & R configuration

Hypothesis1

R proxy configuration depends on the Operating System:

  • Windows: R uses the “—internet2” option
  • Mac OS X/Linux: R uses the “http_proxy” environment variable

- For Windows: the “—internet2” option can be added automatically. see: http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rw-FAQ.html#The-Internet-download-functions-fail_002e

  • For Mac OS X and Linux, we have to test the “http_proxy” R env variable is used

Currently R and RServe options are not configured by TXM StatEngine preferences.
(For runtime proxy options see also commands: setInternet2(use=TRUE) and Sys.setenv(http_proxy=“http://user:password@proxy.example.com:8080/” ))
(We may also use .Rprofile system ? MD: I would rather not do this)

Solution 0

Use .RProfile or .Renviron files to configure the R network.

Solution 1

Match the R network configuration with the OS network configuration
Retrieve the OS proxy configuration: HOW TO (for each OS)

At TXM start up:

  • Windows:
    • run R with: R http_proxy=“http_user:http_password@http_proxy:http_port”
    • create the variable before running R: set http_proxy=“http_user:http_password@http_proxy:http_port”
    • or use the R command line: Sys.setenv(…). But it doesn’t seem to work for this with Windows XP
  • Linux/Mac:
    • use a shell command as: export http_proxy=“http_user:http_password@http_proxy:http_port”
    • or use the R command line: Sys.setenv(http_proxy=“http_user:http_password@http_proxy:http_port”)

Solution 2

Match the R network configuration with the RCP network configuration.
Retrieve the RCP proxy configuration: http://blog.vogella.com/2009/12/08/eclipse-rcp-proxy-preference/

At TXM start up: see Solution 1

Optionnaly, update R proxy when RCP preferences change:

  • Windows: no good solution at this moment (actually one would be to restart R with: R http_proxy=“http_user:http_password@http_proxy:http_port”) (Sys.setenv() doesn’t seems to work for this under Windows XP)
  • Linux/Mac: call in R: Sys.setenv(http_proxy=“http_user:http_password@http_proxy:http_port”)

Solution 3

Use OS download method instead of the R native download method. The OS download method uses the OS network configuration rather than the R network configuration.

  • in R :
    • set the “download.file.method” R option
    • or use the “method” parameter of the “install.packages” function : install.packages(.., method = “wget”)
  • The download method depends on the OS :
    • Linux: wget
    • Mac OS X : curl
    • Windows : no need to install packages

NOTE: Linux “export” and Windows “set” command create the variable in the local session scope, they are not permanently stored.

Validation tests

  • run TXM with a proxy connection
  • enable all log levels in preferences and enable “Run RServe in debug mode”
  • restart TXM
  • run a .R file containing
install.packages("textometry", dependencies=TRUE, repos="http://cran.rstudio.com/");

=>in the console you should have some entries like this:

Rserve>Calling R_tryEval for expression 1 [type=6] ...
Rserve>Installing package into 'C:/Users/s/TXM/R/libraries'
Rserve>(as 'lib' is unspecified)
Rserve>trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/windows/contrib/3.1/textometry_0.1.4.zip'
Rserve>Content type 'application/zip' length 38040 bytes (37 Kb)
Rserve>opened URL
Rserve>downloaded 37 Kb
Rserve>
Rserve>package 'textometry' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
Rserve>
Rserve>The downloaded binary packages are in
Rserve> C:\Users\s\AppData\Local\Temp\RtmpCOyMKe\downloaded_packages
  • the test has failed if you have this line in the console instead of the above log:
Warning: unable to access index for repository http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib

(from redmine: issue id 868, created on 2014/06/17 by Matthieu Decorde)