R help - Feb 2006 - Infinite loop running Mod_R/Rapache

I installed mod_r according to the specifications, and have been trying 
to get the demo script to work correctly. I am running debian, the 
latest build of R, apache 2 with prefork mpm, and the latest mod_r. Is 
anyone else using this module successfully? I added:

LoadModule R_module mod_R.so
<Location /test/hello>
    SetHandler r-handler
    Rsource /var/www/html/test.R
    RreqHandler handler
</Location>

to my http.conf and

test.R in /var/www/html is:

handler<-function(r){
    apache.write(r,"<h1>Hello World!</h1>")
OK
}

When I start apache2, my /tmp directory fills with rtmp directories 
until memory is exausted. The first time it created 32,000 before I 
noticed. Does anyone have any idea as to what I could be doing wrong, or 
have a software configuration that works? Thank you for all of your 
help. ~BJ

Hello,

Recently I have been reading a lot of material about statistical modeling
using R. There seems to be conflicting opinions about what the best approach
is between the SAS community and the R community.
1) In R one might start with a model that has all possible effects of
interest in it and then simplify by eliminating/adding insignificant effects
using a stepwise procedure.
2) In SAS one may starts with a "reasonable" model and look at type 3
SS's
to test hypotheses and report LSMEANS. This can be done in R too I think.

Does anyone have current opinions about this? I know it's been discussed
before but I would be very interested in hearing about the advantages and
pitfalls of both approaches.

Bill

BJ wrote:
> I installed mod_r according to the specifications, and have been trying 
> to get the demo script to work correctly. I am running debian, the 
> latest build of R, apache 2 with prefork mpm, and the latest mod_r. Is 
> anyone else using this module successfully? I added:
> 
> LoadModule R_module mod_R.so
> <Location /test/hello>
>     SetHandler r-handler
>     Rsource /var/www/html/test.R
>     RreqHandler handler
> </Location>
> 
> to my http.conf and
> 
> test.R in /var/www/html is:
> 
> handler<-function(r){
>     apache.write(r,"<h1>Hello World!</h1>")
> OK
> }
> 
> When I start apache2, my /tmp directory fills with rtmp directories 
> until memory is exausted. The first time it created 32,000 before I 
> noticed. Does anyone have any idea as to what I could be doing wrong, or 
> have a software configuration that works? Thank you for all of your 
> help. ~BJ
This is definitely an apache configuration problem. After responding to 
you privately about this issue, I got paranoid and checked the latest 
R/Apache code release (rapache-0.1.1) with the following debian packages:

apache2-common/unstable uptodate 2.0.55-4
apache2-utils/unstable uptodate 2.0.55-4
apache2-mpm-prefork/unstable uptodate 2.0.55-4
apache2-prefork-dev/unstable uptodate 2.0.55-4

I could not reproduce the behavior you are witnessing. Maybe you can 
send me (off-list) your /etc/apache2/apache2.conf, 
/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/* and  see if I can't help you troubleshoot.

But this bit of R creating a temp dir (for transient files?) needs to be 
handled more delicately in a server environment. I'm going to do some 
more digging in the R source... I hope I haven't made some glaringly 
wrong assumptions.

-- 
Jeffrey Horner       Computer Systems Analyst         School of Medicine
615-322-8606         Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University