[Rd] Proposal to limit Internet access during package load

Bob Rudis bob @end|ng |rom rud@|@
Tue Sep 27 03:50:55 CEST 2022 

I would personally like something like an Android/iOS permissions
required/requested manifest document describing what the pkg needs
with R doing what it can to enforce said permissions. R would be
breaking some ground in this space, but it does that regularly in many
respects. Yes, I know I just 10x++ the scope.

I'd support just this flag, tho. Anything to increase transparency and safety.

On Mon, Sep 26, 2022 at 6:22 PM Simon Urbanek
<simon.urbanek using r-project.org> wrote:
>
> BTW: It is a good question whether packages that require internet access in order to function at all should be flagged as such so they can be removed from server installations. Let's say if a package provides an API for retrieving stock quotes online and it's all it does then perhaps it does make sense to exclude it. It would be pointless to appease the load check just to not be able to perform the function it was designed for...
>
> Cheers,
> Simon
>
>
> > On 27/09/2022, at 11:11 AM, Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek using R-project.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> On 27/09/2022, at 11:02 AM, Gabriel Becker <gabembecker using gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> For the record, the only things switchr (my package) is doing internet wise should be hitting the bioconductor config file (http://bioconductor.org/config.yaml) so that it knows the things it need to know about Bioc repos/versions/etc (at load time, actually, not install time, but since install does a test load, those are essentially the same).
> >>
> >> I have fallback behavior for when the file can't be read, so there shouldn't be any actual build breakages/install breakages I don't think, but the check does happen.
> >>
> >
> > $ sandbox-exec -n no-network R CMD INSTALL switchr_0.14.5.tar.gz
> > [...]
> > ** testing if installed package can be loaded from final location
> > Error in readLines(con) :
> >  cannot open the connection to 'http://bioconductor.org/config.yaml'
> > Calls: <Anonymous> ... getBiocDevelVr -> getBiocYaml -> inet_handlers -> readLines
> > Execution halted
> > ERROR: loading failed
> >
> > So, yes, it does break. You should recover from the error and use a fall-back file that you ship.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Simon
> >
> >
> >> Advice on what to do for the above use case that is better practice is welcome.
> >>
> >> ~G
> >>
> >> On Mon, Sep 26, 2022 at 2:40 PM Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek using r-project.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> On 27/09/2022, at 10:21 AM, Iñaki Ucar <iucar using fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, 26 Sept 2022 at 23:07, Simon Urbanek
> >>> <simon.urbanek using r-project.org> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Iñaki,
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm not sure I understand - system dependencies are an entirely different topic and I would argue a far more important one (very happy to start a discussion about that), but that has nothing to do with declaring downloads. I assumed your question was about large files in packages which packages avoid to ship and download instead so declaring them would be useful.
> >>>
> >>> Exactly. Maybe there's a misunderstanding, because I didn't talk about system dependencies (alas there are packages that try to download things that are declared as system dependencies, as Gabe noted). :)
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> Ok, understood. I would like to tackle those as well, but let's start that conversation in a few weeks when I have a lot more time.
> >>
> >>
> >>>> And for that, the obvious answer is they shouldn't do that - if a package needs a file to run, it should include it. So an easy solution is to disallow it.
> >>>
> >>> Then we completely agree. My proposal about declaring additional sources was because, given that so many packages do this, I thought that I would find a strong opposition to this. But if R Core / CRAN is ok with just limiting net access at install time, then that's perfect to me. :)
> >>>
> >>
> >> Yes we do agree :). I started looking at your list, and so far those seem simply bugs or design deficiencies in the packages (and outright policy violations). I think the only reason they exist is that it doesn't get detected in CRAN incoming, it's certainly not intentional.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Simon
> >>
> >>
> >>> Iñaki
> >>>
> >>>> But so far all examples where just (ab)use of downloads for binary dependencies which is an entirely different issue that needs a different solution (in a naive way declaring such dependencies, but we know it's not that simple - and download URLs don't help there).
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>> Simon
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On 27/09/2022, at 8:25 AM,  Ucar <iucar using fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Sat, 24 Sept 2022 at 01:55, Simon Urbanek
> >>>>> <simon.urbanek using r-project.org> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Iñaki,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I fully agree, this a very common issue since vast majority of server deployments I have encountered don't allow internet access. In practice this means that such packages are effectively banned.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I would argue that not even (1) or (2) are really an issue, because in fact the CRAN policy doesn't impose any absolute limits on size, it only states that the package should be "of minimum necessary size" which means it shouldn't waste space. If there is no way to reduce the size without impacting functionality, it's perfectly fine.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "Packages should be of the minimum necessary size" is subject to
> >>>>> interpretation. And in practice, there is an issue with e.g. packages
> >>>>> that "bundle" big third-party libraries. There are also packages that
> >>>>> require downloading precompiled code, JARs... at installation time.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> That said, there are exceptions such as very large datasets (e.g., as distributed by Bioconductor) which are orders of magnitude larger than what is sustainable. I agree that it would be nice to have a mechanism for specifying such sources. So yes, I like the idea, but I'd like to see more real use cases to justify the effort.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "More real use cases" like in "more use cases" or like in "the
> >>>>> previous ones are not real ones"? :)
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> The issue with any online downloads, though, is that there is no guarantee of availability - which is real issue for reproducibility. So one could argue that if such external sources are required then they should be on a well-defined, independent, permanent storage such as Zenodo. This could be a matter of policy as opposed to the technical side above which would be adding such support to R CMD INSTALL.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Not necessarily. If the package declares the additional sources in the
> >>>>> DESCRIPTION (probably with hashes), that's a big improvement over the
> >>>>> current state of things, in which basically we don't know what the
> >>>>> package tries download, then it may fail, and finally there's no
> >>>>> guarantee that it's what the author intended in the first place.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> But on top of this, R could add a CMD to download those, and then some
> >>>>> lookaside storage could be used on CRAN. This is e.g. how RPM
> >>>>> packaging works: the spec declares all the sources, they are
> >>>>> downloaded once, hashed and stored in a lookaside cache. Then package
> >>>>> building doesn't need general Internet connectivity, just access to
> >>>>> the cache.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Iñaki
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>>> Simon
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Sep 24, 2022, at 3:22 AM, Iñaki Ucar <iucar using fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Hi all,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I'd like to open this debate here, because IMO this is a big issue.
> >>>>>>> Many packages do this for various reasons, some more legitimate than
> >>>>>>> others, but I think that this shouldn't be allowed, because it
> >>>>>>> basically means that installation fails in a machine without Internet
> >>>>>>> access (which happens e.g. in Linux distro builders for security
> >>>>>>> reasons).
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Now, what if connection is suppressed during package load? There are
> >>>>>>> basically three use cases out there:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> (1) The package requires additional files for the installation (e.g.
> >>>>>>> the source code of an external library) that cannot be bundled into
> >>>>>>> the package due to CRAN restrictions (size).
> >>>>>>> (2) The package requires additional files for using it (e.g.,
> >>>>>>> datasets, a JAR...) that cannot be bundled into the package due to
> >>>>>>> CRAN restrictions (size).
> >>>>>>> (3) Other spurious reasons (e.g. the maintainer decided that package
> >>>>>>> load was a good place to check an online service availability, etc.).
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Again IMO, (3) shouldn't be allowed in any case; (2) should be a
> >>>>>>> separate function that the user actively calls to download the files,
> >>>>>>> and those files should be placed into the user dir, and (3) is the
> >>>>>>> only legitimate use, but then other mechanism should be provided to
> >>>>>>> avoid connections during package load.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> My proposal to support (3) would be to add a new field in the
> >>>>>>> DESCRIPTION, "Additional_sources", which would be a comma separated
> >>>>>>> list of additional resources to download during R CMD INSTALL. Those
> >>>>>>> sources would be downloaded by R CMD INSTALL if not provided via an
> >>>>>>> option (to support offline installations), and would be placed in a
> >>>>>>> predefined place for the package to find and configure them (via an
> >>>>>>> environment variable or in a predefined subdirectory).
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> This proposal has several advantages. Apart from the obvious one
> >>>>>>> (Internet access during package load can be limited without losing
> >>>>>>> current functionalities), it gives more visibility to the resources
> >>>>>>> that packages are using during the installation phase, and thus makes
> >>>>>>> those installations more reproducible and more secure.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Best,
> >>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>> Iñaki Úcar
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> ______________________________________________
> >>>>>>> R-devel using r-project.org mailing list
> >>>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Iñaki Úcar
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Iñaki Úcar
> >>>
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
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> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
>
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