Summary:
The directory /usr/local/lib/R/site-library can be used for site-wide
multi-user installations of R.
This is even the default on Debian and Ubuntu (following a suggestion by
Kurt and Fritz a decade ago over beers -- what could be better). However,
R enforces wrong permissions on directories and files there (removing
group-write) which effectively defeats this purpose, and breaks multiuser
installation: if Tom, Dick and Harry are members of group 'r-users', each
one can install in the directory, but neither can _upgrade_ a package
installed by one of the others.
I would like to correct this.
Details:
For a while now, R CMD INSTALL dispatches installation work to the R
function tools:::.install_packages() from the file tools/install.R. The
function does a lot of hardcoded 'chmod' with constant arguments:
edd@max:~/svn/r-devel/src/library/tools/R$ grep Sys.chmod install.R
if (!WINDOWS) Sys.chmod(file.path(dest, files), "755")
Sys.chmod(file.path(instdir, f), "644")
Sys.chmod(Sys.glob(file.path(instdir, "data", "*")), "644")
Sys.chmod(Sys.glob(file.path(instdir, "demo", "*")), "644")
Sys.chmod(Sys.glob(file.path(instdir, "exec", "*")),
"755")
Sys.chmod(i2_files[execs], "755")
edd@max:~/svn/r-devel/src/library/tools/R$
Moreover, it also calls a C function for cleanup cleanup:
edd@max:~/svn/r-devel/src/library/tools/R$ grep ".Call(dir" install.R
.Call(dirchmod, instdir)
.Call(dirchmod, ss)
.Call(dirchmod, ss)
## tree, since the later .Call(dirchmod) call will
edd@max:~/svn/r-devel/src/library/tools/R$
which also uses unconditional 644 / 755
mode_t mask = S_IRUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH | S_IWUSR, /* 0644 */
dirmask = mask | S_IXUSR | S_IXGRP | S_IXOTH; /* 0755 */
Proposal:
Add a new option() [with a to-be-determined name] which, if enabled, turns
on group-write modes for files and directories, ie "664" and "775".
One way would be to set two character vars at the beginning of
_install_packages and to pass a flag to the dirchmod call as so that
'S_IWGRP' (the 00020 "write by group" permission) can be set.
I would be happy to write such a patch (including documentation updates) if
someone from R Core can signal willigness to look at it.
Thanks, Dirk
--
Dirk Eddelbuettel | e...@debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com
______________________________________________
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
