R nodes can't access internet through proxy

[lduplay]

Hi team,

I've ran into an issue when trying to run any R code that connects to the internet (whether it be install.packages(), url(), etc...) when using my Knime version configured with a proxy (used by the company I work for).

The R code works both under Rstudio (using the same local R install) as well as when my machine is not connected to my company network.

It seems therefore that R nodes are ignoring the Knime configured proxy - have you run into this issue before or know how I can fix it?

Thanks,

Leon

[jonfuller]

Hi Leon,

It looks like you should be able to set the proxy settings in an R snippet manually as follows:

# To set the proxy.

Sys.setenv(http_proxy="http://user:password@proxy_server:port")

# To see what is set.

Sys.getenv( "http_proxy" )

 

http_proxy="http://user:password@proxy_server:port"

Can also be set in ~/.Renviron 

 

Thanks,

 

Jon

[maierhofer.l]

Jon,

many thanks for above.
We found also another way of dealing with this: In case the proxy settings are already available on the system level, using the following hint from the R documentation solves the issue as well:

(a) Use the Windows internet functions by starting R with the flag --internet2 (see How do I install R for Windows?) or calling setInternet2(TRUE) or setting the environment variable R_WIN_INTERNET2 to a non-empty value when starting R. These cause R to use the OS’s functions used by Internet Explorer, which may already be configured for use with proxies. Note that this does not work with proxies that need authentication.

[lduplay]

Hi Jon,

We managed to find a workaround that avoids putting the password in plain text in the node configuration: by using 

setInternet2(TRUE)

in the R snippet that needs to connect to the internet, we make R use the system proxy settings where Windows is already correctly configured.

Thanks!

Leon