remotes::install_github('rstudio/[email protected]') fails for renv >= 1.0.0 "Error cannot open URL...", on linux, works for renv <= 0.17.3

[cpenaloza]

On a linux machine, I'm trying to build a docker image with a specific version of renv but remotes::install_github() fails for any version of renv >= 1.0.0.

This is what I run in my dockerfile:

FROM r-base:4.3.1

RUN apt-get update --fix-missing -y && apt-get install -y libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev
RUN apt-get install -y libxml2-dev libpq-dev
ENV RENV_VERSION 1.0.0
ENV RENV_ACTIVATE_PROJECT 0

RUN R -e "install.packages('remotes', repos = c(CRAN = 'https://cloud.r-project.org'))"
RUN R -e "remotes::install_github('rstudio/renv@${RENV_VERSION}')"

and this is what I've been running in my R-console to "debug"

install.packages('remotes', repos = c(CRAN = 'https://cloud.r-project.org'))
remotes::install_github('rstudio/[email protected]')

Which returns:

Downloading GitHub repo rstudio/[email protected]
Error in utils::download.file(url, path, method = method, quiet = quiet,  : 
  cannot open URL 'https://api.github.com/repos/rstudio/renv/tarball/1.0.0'

If I run the following, it installs no problem

> remotes::install_github('rstudio/[email protected]')
Downloading GitHub repo rstudio/[email protected]
Running `R CMD build`...
* checking for file ‘/tmp/RtmpSHDb9O/remotes74747c132063/rstudio-renv-f13c476/DESCRIPTION’ ... OK
* preparing ‘renv’:
* checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... OK
* checking for LF line-endings in source and make files and shell scripts
* checking for empty or unneeded directories
Removed empty directory ‘renv/tests/testthat/resources/dummy.Rmd’
* building ‘renv_0.17.3.tar.gz’
Installing package into ‘/home/uia96863/corepredictor_industrialization/renv/library/R-4.3/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
* installing *source* package ‘renv’ ...
** using staged installation
** R
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
** help
*** installing help indices
*** copying figures
** building package indices
** installing vignettes
** testing if installed package can be loaded from temporary location
** testing if installed package can be loaded from final location
** testing if installed package keeps a record of temporary installation path
* DONE (renv)

I'm at a loss, no idea what is going on here. Any help greatly appreciated!

[gaborcsardi]

You need to use a GitHub personal access token for reliable installation from GitHub.
And/or consider using the pak package instead of remotes.

[cpenaloza]

Will do. I had run into that before but personal access tokens would expire before than expected and I ended up creating one almost every time I built a new Docker image. I figured I was doing something else wrong too.

I'll have a look at pak. Thank you!

[tspen]

If anyone else finds this, you need to add a v for versions of renv > 1.0.0.

e.g.

install.packages('remotes', repos = c(CRAN = 'https://cloud.r-project.org')) remotes::install_github('rstudio/[email protected]')

[cpenaloza]

Thank you @tspen! I fumbled my way to adding the "v" in pak::pkg_install('rstudio/[email protected]'), but didn't retry with remotes.