[R-SIG-Mac] R, installing packages behind a firewall

[Michael Bach]

Dear colleagues:

In all probability my request is trivial, please bear with me if so.  
Problem: installing packages (be it via the GUI or using  
"install.packages" meets with a response "can't access index of ...  
repository ..." (it's in German, but that's the gist). Since it works  
at home, I assume it's a firewall problem here in the Medical School.

I found documentation that a proxy can be defined like so:
Sys.setenv(http_proxy="http://USER:PASSWD@wwwp.ukl.uni-freiburg.de:80")
but that has no effect, even if I do it immediately after R's startup.
Possibly the reason is that that URL actually references a PAC file in  
my case.

Any help greatly appreciated! And thanks for a great GUI making R more  
approachable.


Best, Michael

PS: R version 2.7.0 (2008-04-22)  i386-apple-darwin8.10.1
locale: de_DE.UTF-8/de_DE.UTF-8/C/C/de_DE.UTF-8/de_DE.UTF-8
attached base packages: stats     graphics  grDevices utils      
datasets  methods   base
loaded via a namespace (and not attached): tools_2.7.0
R version 2.7.0 (2008-04-22) $`svn rev`  "45424"
Mac OS X 10.5.2, PowerMac
-- 
Prof. Michael Bach PhD, Ophthalmology, University of Freiburg,  
Killianstr. 5, 79106 Freiburg, Germany.
Visual illusions:  <http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/>