[Rd] Set up new CRAN mirror; but have questions before finalizing.

[Paul Johnson]

Hi, everybody

I have an account on Dreamhost.com and when I renewed it recently,
their message said my usage of storage and bandwidth had been
reasonably low. In an idle moment about 3 weeks ago, I followed your
instructions to set up a CRAN mirror on their server.  Here it is:

http://www.freefaculty.org/cran

It is not hosted at my University, but it is a working, high
availability server.  Is there any reason it could not be listed as a
CRAN mirror. (Although I really have no idea where these machines
exist. I'm pretty sure it is in the USA. I'll try to find out).

Maybe you might try it and see?  It has updated several times, no
trouble I can see in that.

I have a couple of small details to ask about.  Maybe this first one
is a potential  "bug report" for the CRAN mirror instructions.

1. Permissions on "src" and "web" folders are 700,  and so running
"update.packages" or an apt-get update against the debian stuff
results in permission denied errors.  I re-set the permissions
manually, but wonder if I'm actually supposed to mess around with your
archive.  After doing that, it works.  But I worry a little bit about
what else might not be readable "down there" in the hierarchy. And I
wonder why any body else's mirror works without doing that.

Notice before

> update.packages( repos=c("http://www.freefaculty.org/cran"))
Warning: unable to access index for repository
http://www.freefaculty.org/cran/src/contrib

and after giving others rx permission on "src".

> update.packages( repos=c("http://www.freefaculty.org/cran"))
RandomFields :
 Version 1.3.47 installed in /usr/local/lib/R/site-library
 Version 2.0.40 available at http://www.freefaculty.org/cran
Update (y/N/c)?

So at least that part works.  right?

2. When I run "apt-get update" against my mirror, i get a lot of
harassment about the lack of a security key for my repository.  Should
I be publishing an R Core team key to fix that, or my own key to do
what?  I've never administered an apt repository before. I have
administered yum repositories and the security there is in the key on
the individual RPMS, I don't quite understand what the Debian thing is
asking me to do.

If just a couple of you would test this out, I would feel more brave
in asking to have this listed on the CRAN mirror system.

Regards,

pj

-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas