Hello, thanks for the tips on updating packages for 1.8.0. The updating is a real problem for me, since I've to do it sort of manually using my web-browser or wget. I'm behind a firewall that requires http/ftp authentification (username and passwd) for every request it sends to a server outside our intranet. Therefore all the nice tools for automatic updating (cran, cpan ...) don't for me (I've tried). I understand that the non-paranoid rest of the world can't be bothered, but is there any intenstion to include such authentification into the update procedures of R? I think for ftp it's kind of tricky, but at least for http the authentification seems to be straight forward. kind regards, Arne
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 Arne.Muller at aventis.com wrote:> Hello, > > thanks for the tips on updating packages for 1.8.0. The updating is a real > problem for me, since I've to do it sort of manually using my web-browser or > wget. I'm behind a firewall that requires http/ftp authentification (username > and passwd) for every request it sends to a server outside our intranet. > Therefore all the nice tools for automatic updating (cran, cpan ...) don't > for me (I've tried). > > I understand that the non-paranoid rest of the world can't be bothered, but > is there any intenstion to include such authentification into the update > procedures of R? I think for ftp it's kind of tricky, but at least for http > the authentification seems to be straight forward.It's available for http: see ?download.file, and you can even configure that to use wget. Your comments are very much misplaced: we *have* bothered to provide the facilities for you. -- Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk 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
Sorry, I didn' mean it the nasty way. I wouldn't have been surprised if the R-team had told me the authentification with the firewall is my problem (i.e. a special case that cannot be dealt with by th R-team). Yess, and off course I should have had a much closer lookk into the docu. Thanks again for the hint + please forgive! +regards, Arne> -----Original Message----- > From: Prof Brian Ripley [mailto:ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk] > Sent: 08 October 2003 17:20 > To: Muller, Arne PH/FR > Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch > Subject: Re: [R] updating via CRAN and http > > > On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 Arne.Muller at aventis.com wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > thanks for the tips on updating packages for 1.8.0. The > updating is a real > > problem for me, since I've to do it sort of manually using > my web-browser or > > wget. I'm behind a firewall that requires http/ftp > authentification (username > > and passwd) for every request it sends to a server outside > our intranet. > > Therefore all the nice tools for automatic updating (cran, > cpan ...) don't > > for me (I've tried). > > > > I understand that the non-paranoid rest of the world can't > be bothered, but > > is there any intenstion to include such authentification > into the update > > procedures of R? I think for ftp it's kind of tricky, but > at least for http > > the authentification seems to be straight forward. > > It's available for http: see ?download.file, and you can even > configure > that to use wget. > > Your comments are very much misplaced: we *have* bothered to > provide the > facilities for you. > > -- > Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk > 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 > >
On Wed, Oct 08, 2003 at 04:25:13PM +0200, Arne.Muller at aventis.com wrote:> Hello, > > thanks for the tips on updating packages for 1.8.0. The updating is a real > problem for me, since I've to do it sort of manually using my web-browser or > wget. I'm behind a firewall that requires http/ftp authentification (username > and passwd) for every request it sends to a server outside our intranet. > Therefore all the nice tools for automatic updating (cran, cpan ...) don't > for me (I've tried).Please try to read the help pages, FAQ or mailing list archives. Trust me that you are not the only corporate user around here. This question comes up really frequently.> I understand that the non-paranoid rest of the world can't be bothered, but > is there any intenstion to include such authentification into the update > procedures of R? I think for ftp it's kind of tricky, but at least for http > the authentification seems to be straight forward.Years ago a small patch of mine was integrated which allowed for wget as a download methid. Set e.g. options(download.file.method="wget") options(CRAN="http://cran.us.r-project.org") in ~/.Rprofile. Get yourself a copy of wget, set it up with a suitable ~/.wgetrc as e.g. per http_proxy=http://some.where.on.the.intra.net:8080 proxy=on proxy-user=abcdefgh proxy-passwd=XXXXXXXX and make sure you change the file to read-only. Test it with wget http://www.google.com and if that works you will be fine for downloads within R too, including package upgrades and normal http/ftp access as e.g. used by get.hist.quote() in the tseries package. This worked reliably for me in various environments, locations and operating system, including several Win* variants. Hth, Dirk -- Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. -- Groucho Marx