[Rd] [R-win] Bug 17159 - recursive dir.create() fails on windows shares due to permissions (MMaechler: Resending to R-windows at R-pr..)

Thompson, Pete Pete.Thompson at iqvia.com
Fri Feb 16 17:30:21 CET 2018


Wonderful ( - thanks!

Cheers
Pete

On 16/02/2018, 16:29, "Tomas Kalibera" <tomas.kalibera at gmail.com> wrote:

    Bug 17159 has been fixed (in R-devel), but there may be more issues left
    with UNC paths.
    Tomas

    On 01/17/2018 01:37 PM, Joris Meys wrote:
    > Hi Peter,
    >
    > I share your experience with trying to help IT departments setting things
    > up. The network directory of the students is mapped to a drive, but R still
    > uses the unc path instead of the drive when attempting to create that user
    > library. Unless I do it manually of course. The only solution I see right
    > now is to set the HOME or R_LIBS_USER environment variable in Renviron, but
    > that should be done each time a new student logs into the computer. Or is
    > there a way to ensure R uses the mapped drive instead of the network unc
    > path, either using an R setting or by messing with Windows itself?
    >
    > Cheers
    > Joris
    >
    >
    >
    > On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 1:21 PM, Peter Dalgaard <pd.mes at cbs.dk> wrote:
    >
    >> I can easily believe that. It was maily for Joris, that it might not be
    >> necessary to reinstall.
    >>
    >> -pd
    >>
    >>> On 17 Jan 2018, at 11:55 , Thompson, Pete <Pete.Thompson at iqvia.com>
    >> wrote:
    >>> That solution works fine for the use case where each user has a network
    >> based home directory and needs to run R from there, but doesn’t help with
    >> my situation. I need to be able to support arbitrary network based paths in
    >> arbitrary numbers – so mapping drives isn’t an option. I have found a
    >> workaround using symbolic links to the network share created within the
    >> temporary folder, but would much prefer that R support UNC paths – it seems
    >> a reasonably simple fix.
    >>> Cheers
    >>> Pete
    >>>
    >>>
    >>> On 17/01/2018, 10:52, "Peter Dalgaard" <pd.mes at cbs.dk> wrote:
    >>>
    >>>     I usually draw a complete blank if  I try to assist our IT department
    >> with such issues (we really need better documentation than the Admin manual
    >> for large-system installs by non-experts in R).
    >>>     However, it is my impression that there are also options involving
    >> environment variables and LFS naming. E.g., map the networked user
    >> directory to, say, a P: "drive" and make sure that the environment is set
    >> up to reflect this.
    >>>     -pd
    >>>
    >>>> On 16 Jan 2018, at 17:52 , Joris Meys <jorismeys at gmail.com> wrote:
    >>>>
    >>>> Hi all,
    >>>>
    >>>> I ran into this exact issue yesterday during the exam of statistical
    >>>> computing. Users can install packages in a user library that R tries to
    >>>> create automatically on the network drive of the student. But that
    >> doesn't
    >>>> happen as the unc path is not read correctly, leading to R attempting to
    >>>> create a local directory and being told it has no right to do so.
    >>>>
    >>>> That is an older version of R though (3.3), but I'm wondering whether I
    >>>> would ask our IT department to just update R on all these computers to
    >> the
    >>>> latest version, or if we have to look for another solution.
    >>>>
    >>>> Cheers
    >>>> Joris
    >>>>
    >>>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Thompson, Pete <Pete.Thompson at iqvia.com
    >>>> wrote:
    >>>>
    >>>>> Hi, I’d like to ask about bug 17159:
    >>>>>
    >>>>> https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17159
    >>>>>
    >>>>> I can confirm that I see exactly this bug when using dir.create on
    >> paths
    >>>>> of UNC form (\\server\share\xxx), with the recursive flag set. I’m
    >> seeing
    >>>>> this when attempting to use install.packages with such a path (which I
    >> know
    >>>>> isn’t supported, but would be great if it was!). I can see that a
    >> patch has
    >>>>> been suggested for the problem and from looking at the source code I
    >>>>> believe it’s a correct fix. Is there a possibility of getting this
    >> patch
    >>>>> included?
    >>>>>
    >>>>> The existing logic for Windows recursive dir.create (platform.c lines
    >>>>> 2209-22203) appears to be:
    >>>>> - Skip over any \\share at the start of the directory name
    >>>>> - Loop while there are pieces of directory name left (i.e. we haven’t
    >> hit
    >>>>> the last \ character)
    >>>>> = Find the next portion of the directory name (up to the next \
    >>>>> character)
    >>>>> = Attempt to create the directory (unless it is of the form x: - i.e. a
    >>>>> drive name)
    >>>>> = Ignore any ‘already exists’ errors, otherwise throw an error
    >>>>>
    >>>>> This logic appears flawed in that it skips \\share which isn’t a valid
    >>>>> path format (according to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
    >>>>> us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx ). Dredging my
    >> memory,
    >>>>> it’s possible that \\share was a supported format in very old versions
    >> of
    >>>>> Windows, but it’s been a long time since the UNC format came in. It’s
    >> also
    >>>>> possible that \\share is a valid format in some odd environments, but
    >> the
    >>>>> UNC format is far more widely used.
    >>>>>
    >>>>> The patch suggested by Evan Cortens is simply to change the skip logic
    >> to
    >>>>> skip over \\server\share instead of \\share. This will certainly fix
    >> the
    >>>>> common use case of using UNC paths, but doesn’t attempt to deal with
    >> all
    >>>>> the more complex options in Microsoft’s documentation. I doubt many
    >> users
    >>>>> would ask for the complex cases, but the basic UNC format would be of
    >> wide
    >>>>> applicability.
    >>>>>
    >>>>> Thanks
    >>>>> Pete Thompson
    >>>>> Director, Information Technology
    >>>>> Head of Spotfire Centre of Excellence
    >>>>> IQVIA
    >>>>>
    >>>>>
    >>>>>
    >>>>>
    >>>>> ________________________________________
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    >>>>> ______________________________________________
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    >>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >>>>
    >>>>
    >>>>
    >>>> --
    >>>> Joris Meys
    >>>> Statistical consultant
    >>>>
    >>>> Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling
    >>>> Ghent University
    >>>> Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Gent (Belgium)
    >>>> <https://maps.google.com/?q=Coupure+links+653,%C2%A0B-
    >> 9000+Gent,%C2%A0Belgium&entry=gmail&source=g>
    >>>> -----------
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    >>>> http://www.biowiskundedagen.ugent.be/
    >>>>
    >>>> -------------------------------
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    >>>>
    >>>> ______________________________________________
    >>>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >>>> _______________________________________________
    >>>> R-windows mailing list
    >>>> R-windows at r-project.org
    >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-windows
    >>>     --
    >>>     Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
    >>>     Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
    >>>     Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
    >>>     Phone: (+45)38153501
    >>>     Office: A 4.23
    >>>     Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>> ________________________________________
    >>> IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ: This electronic message, including its
    >> attachments, is CONFIDENTIAL and may contain PROPRIETARY or LEGALLY
    >> PRIVILEGED or PROTECTED information and is intended for the authorized
    >> recipient of the sender. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
    >> hereby notified that any use, disclosure, copying, or distribution of this
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    >>> ______________________________________________
    >>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >> --
    >> Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
    >> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
    >> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
    >> Phone: (+45)38153501
    >> Office: A 4.23
    >> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >





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