R help - Jan 2009 - Using R in a web application

Hi,

I want to use R to do user-submitted jobs in a (java-based) webapp.
Specifically, I want
* users to upload R scripts
* run the R job on user data
* save the results to database

I'm concerned about sandbox issues.
* Is it possible to disable file read/write capability?
* Can I prevent the user from loading packages (e.g. the database package).

* Can I have users work on separate data sets while preventing access to
other user's data?

I'm trying to see if there's a secure way to let users upload their R
scripts and run on my server.

Thanks,
WILL

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Will Glass-Husain wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I want to use R to do user-submitted jobs in a (java-based) webapp.
> Specifically, I want
> * users to upload R scripts
> * run the R job on user data
> * save the results to database
> 
> I'm concerned about sandbox issues.
> * Is it possible to disable file read/write capability?
> * Can I prevent the user from loading packages (e.g. the database package).
> 
> * Can I have users work on separate data sets while preventing access to
> other user's data?
> 
> I'm trying to see if there's a secure way to let users upload their
R
> scripts and run on my server.
Have a look at Rserve (http://www.rforge.net/Rserve), I've never used it 
but it might be useful to you.


-- 
Gad Abraham
Dept. CSSE and NICTA
The University of Melbourne
Parkville 3010, Victoria, Australia
email: gabraham at csse.unimelb.edu.au
web: http://www.csse.unimelb.edu.au/~gabraham