[R] R via ssh login on OS X?

roger koenker rkoenker at uiuc.edu
Tue Jun 29 14:29:41 CEST 2004 

My office G5 running R-devel has no problem with remote logins, either
mine, or my students, so I doubt there is something fatally flawed in
either the OS or R that is a problem.  X11Forwarding is off by default
so this does need to be changed, I believe.  I might add just for a
moment of schadenfreude that Stata's Mac version does seem to
make it impossible to run remotely even though their other unix
versions are happy to do so.


url:	www.econ.uiuc.edu/~roger        	Roger Koenker
email	rkoenker at uiuc.edu			Department of Economics
vox: 	217-333-4558				University of Illinois
fax:   	217-244-6678				Champaign, IL 61820

On Jun 29, 2004, at 2:04 AM, James Howison wrote:

>
> On Jun 29, 2004, at 1:22 AM, Ulises Mora Alvarez wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>>
>> If you are trying to log in from another Mac to the G5 there are some
>> details to bear in mind, though. If you are indeed trying from a Mac, 
>> I'd
>> suggest you to launch your local X server; then, from an xterm 'ssh 
>> -X...'
>> to the G5. Of course, if the sshd on the G5 is configured so that its
>> /etc/sshd_config says 'X11Forwarding no' you'll be not able to use 
>> the X11
>> device for graphics; but you can search for a solution on the list
>> files.
>
> That's good thinking.  That hadn't occurred to me and would be great 
> for the graphical stuff.  Goes to show that Xwindows has the right 
> idea for networked graphics while aqua is hopeless in that regard.
>
> I don't think that this problem happens in R-1.9.1 because if I ssh 
> into my laptop from a remote box as a non-logged-in user R behaves 
> perfectly on the commandline.  Or maybe the install on the G5 is 
> fubared.
>
> Happily I have managed to solve my immediate problem on the G5 by 
> compiling a copy of R in my home directory.  This wasn't the easiest 
> primarily because I didn't have f2c installed (and because I don't 
> have root I couldn't put it in the normal place).  I'm going to say 
> how I did it in case this is handy for others (frankly I hope others 
> don't have to go through this ;)
>
> I grabbed the f2c code from 
> ftp://netlib.bell-labs.com:21/netlib/f2c/src.tar
> and libf2c from http://www.netlib.org/f2c/libf2c.zip
>
> Both built ok.  I moved the f2c executable, f2c.h and libf2c.a into 
> ~/f2c.  Don't forget to run ranlib over libf2c
>
> I set the environment variables:
>
> LDFLAGS=-L$HOME/f2c/
> CPPFLAGS=-I$HOME/f2c/   (for some reason the --includedir just didn't 
> seem to work ...)
>
> (had to remember to do this before configure)
>
> then did
>
> ./configure --prefix=$HOME/Rinstall/ --enable-R-framework=no 
> --with-x=no --with-lapack=no
>
> and then
>
> make
>
> This basically worked but for some reason lapack was still trying to 
> build and that was failing, so I deleted it from the appropriate 
> makefile and the rest of the compile went fine.  The lapack confusion 
> stopped some of the recommended modules from building but I didn't 
> need those (just sna which built fine from CRAN).
>
> I didn't do the actual install but am just using the full path to R.  
> It is working fine in command-line mode now and the calculations are 
> running as I type.
>
> I didn't test this but I did also read that people are able to get 
> around the "need graphical launching access" by using OS X fast user 
> switching.
>
> Thanks everyone!
>
> --J
>
>>
>> Good look.
>>
>> On Mon, 28 Jun 2004, Paul Roebuck wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 28 Jun 2004, James Howison wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have an ssh only login to a G5 on which I am hoping to run some
>>>> analyses.  The situation is complicated by the fact that the 
>>>> computer's
>>>> owner is away for the summer (and thus also only has shell login).
>>>>
>>>> R is installed and there is a symlink to /usr/local/bin/R but when I
>>>> try to launch it I get:
>>>>
>>>> [jhowison at euro]$ R
>>>> kCGErrorRangeCheck : Window Server communications from outside of
>>>> session allowed for root and console user only
>>>> INIT_Processeses(), could not establish the default connection to 
>>>> the
>>>> WindowServer.Abort trap
>>>>
>>>> I though, ah ha, I need to tell it not to use the GUI but to no 
>>>> avail:
>>>>
>>>> [jhowison at euro]$ R --gui=none
>>>> kCGErrorRangeCheck : Window Server communications from outside of
>>>> session allowed for root and console user only
>>>> INIT_Processeses(), could not establish the default connection to 
>>>> the
>>>> WindowServer.Abort trap
>>>>
>>>> I'm embarrassed to say that I'm writing to the list without having 
>>>> the
>>>> latest version installed---because I can't install it at the 
>>>> moment.  I
>>>> am using R 1.8.1.  I have tried to compile the latest from source 
>>>> but
>>>> there is no F77 compiler. I thought I'd ask around before going down
>>>> the "put local dependencies in the home folder" to compile this 
>>>> route
>>>> (any hints on doing that would be great though) ...
>>>>
>>>> Can other people get R command-line to work with logged in remotely 
>>>> via
>>>> ssh?  Any hints?
>>>> Is this something that is fixed in more recent versions?
>>>>
>>>> I think I can see one other route:  getting the computer's owner to
>>>> install fink and their version remotely ... but I'm open to all 
>>>> "don't
>>>> bother the professor when he's on holiday" options ...
>>>
>>> I suffered similarly attempting to run R via CGI; I never found
>>> a workaround for remote access (also running 1.8.1 with Panther).
>>> Seemed to have something to do with running an application requiring
>>> access to graphics but not being the user currently "owning" the 
>>> dock.
>>> I did not determine if the limitation was due to R implementation or
>>> operating system software.
>>>
>>> F77 not necessary; use 'f2c' instead. But don't bother with Fink 
>>> since
>>> it's not necessary to build it. No 'sudo' access either? Is the user
>>> still logged in (screenlocked) or are you just lacking administrative
>>> access?
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>> SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
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>>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Ulises M. Alvarez
>> LAB. DE ONDAS DE CHOQUE
>> FISICA APLICADA Y TECNOLOGIA AVANZADA
>> UNAM
>> umalvarez at fata.unam.mx
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> --James
> +1 315 395 4056
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
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