On Thu, 1 May 2008, Simon Urbanek wrote:
Dan,
R is using its own cross-platform code for HTTP/FTP connections and relies on
the usual http_proxy env variable. Hence your best bet is to set http_proxy
in .Rprofile as Kasper suggested.
Or (see ?Startup), the environment setting files .Renviron and
Renviron.site.
Determining proxy settings from the preferences is very messy and unreliable
(due to PAC proxies), so the only alternative would be to use Apple's CF
network API for downloads. Given that it only adds complexity (event loop
issues etc.) with no obvious functional benefit it is questionable whether
it's worth the hassle.
Cheers,
Simon
On May 1, 2008, at 11:47 AM, Stranathan, Dan wrote:
Hello everyone
I have a R question for you. I am new to the wide world of all things R and
I am not a scientist or a programmer per se. I'm a Systems Administrator
trying to troubleshoot a network issue with R - Specifically related to
proxy servers.
Background:
My Institute has a Linus-based Squid proxy server that brokers all http
traffic through it. We have 2 versions of the proxy server. One proxy
server (used for 99% of our staff) requires the user to manually type a
password when prompted. Not all applications are "smart" enough to
understand a proxy can since it requires the 2-way process of password
negotiation, etc. Our 2nd Proxy server is basically a "wide open door" to
the Internet. Only certain managers and the IT dept are allowed to use this
proxy. It doesn't require a password at all.
As you may know, the main way to configure proxy settings in OS X is via
the System Preferences (the Network Pane has a tab for proxy settings). You
can also configure these settings from the Terminal via the networksetup
and systemsetup commands too. Both ways achieve the same result. You can
also configure your shell session to be "proxy-aware" using the UNIX
http_proxy variable in your .bash_profile (I describe this more below)
So far, both Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard) have worked quite
well with our proxy servers. In fact, all "proxy aware" applications such
as Safari, iTunes, WebDAV, etc work great (As long as you know your
password of course). Even the curl and wget commands work from the
Terminal with once the proper configurations have been made.
My R Problem:
The GUI version of R 2.7.0 (and possibly earlier versions?) does not work
with our proxy server correctly. I have tried both of our proxy servers
(secure and open) and neither one will allow R to route out to the
Internet. Other apps like Safari, curl, etc have no problem getting to the
R update site (cran.r-project.org).
Certain command line tools will not honor the Mac OS X global proxy
settings. When this happens I usually just add an environmental proxy
setting with the "export http_proxy=<my proxy server>" to my .bash_profile,
etc and I can get around this problem quite easily. I stumbled across this
because the R command line tools (in Terminal and X11) were not honoring
the Mac OS X global proxy settings at first, so I had to implement the
setting I just described. It works great now. But... I still cant get the R
GUI app to peacefully co-exist with my proxy servers, regardless of how I
configure the Mac OS X GUI system proxy or the shell environment. Here is
the error I get in the R GUI window:
Error in file(con, "r") : cannot open the connection
In addition: Warning message:
In file(con, "r") : unable to connect to 'cran.r-project.org' on port 80.
If you can offer any suggestions I would greatly appreciate them!
Thanks!
-Dan
_______________________________________________
R-SIG-Mac mailing list
[email protected]
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
_______________________________________________
R-SIG-Mac mailing list
[email protected]
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
--
Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595
_______________________________________________
R-SIG-Mac mailing list
[email protected]
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
