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List:       r-help
Subject:    [R] Deprecating download method='wininet' in R on Windows causes trouble with corporate proxy
From:       "Selke, Gisbert W." <gisbert.selke () wido ! bv ! aok ! de>
Date:       2022-09-29 22:42:40
Message-ID: 14971cd0cb3646b986fa352dc1df9050 () wido ! bv ! aok ! de
[Download RAW message or body]

Method="wininet" is deprecated and scheduled to go away, the standard method is now \
libcurl. This causes trouble for all R users in our shop, because we are sitting \
behind a corporate proxy, which uses Kerberos authentication. (We're all on Windows.)

Using wininet, this used to work without problems and without additional effort; it \
currently still does with explicit method="wininet" (which, by the way, precludes use \
of the handy menu command "Update packages", which will use the default method, i.e., \
libcurl as of now.)

For the future, when wininet will be gone for good, the only option we have is to \
resort to first setting environment variables HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY and then \
tricking the proxy out of using Kerberos, setting HTTPS_PROXY_USER to a dummy string. \
This is certainly doable for R users with enough knowledge of the technicalities of \
internet access, but our average R user will just be lost. As has been pointed out \
elsewhere (https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio/issues/10163#issuecomment-1154071514) , \
this will create a lot of blood, sweat and tears (and swears), and it is a moderate \
nightmare to maintain consistently and up-to-date for many users.

My first question is: Since we are probably not the only institution in this \
situation, has anyone come up with a robust and maintainable solution other than our \
approach described above?

Failing that: would it be possible at all to change the use that the R core makes of \
libcurl in such a way that it would automagically Do The Right Thing (tm)? In \
principle, this should be possible; after all, wininet did the trick, and ordinary \
browsers can handle this situation. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about the R internals \
so cannot say whether I am being overly naïve here.)

Any help appreciated.

(I'm new to this list, so if this has been discussed here before, I apologize and \
would be grateful for a pointer to do my reading.)

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