Message-ID: <20170121144303.7ef91ba6@ECM-DTC-716.uniwa.uwa.edu.au>
Date: 2017-01-21T06:43:03Z
From: Berwin A Turlach
Subject: xvfb? cron job updates R packages, fails on some requiring X11
In-Reply-To: <CAErODj8K8gbM6HxQvtQuaL6ypKhtC90d6_H+oAEfdE1U8kkWtw@mail.gmail.com>
G'day Paul,
On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 10:52:16 -0600
Paul Johnson <pauljohn32 at gmail.com> wrote:
> In Centos 7 systems, I wrote a script that runs on the cron and I
> notice some package updates and installs fail like this:
>
> [....]
>
> I understand I need something like xvfb to simulate an X11 session,
> but I don't understand how to make it work. Can one of you give me an
> idiot's guide on what to do?
I do not know about Centos (i.e. how to install the necessary
software), but on my Ubuntu machines I have since years the following
in my crontab:
44 4 * * * cd /opt/src ; /usr/bin/xvfb-run ./R-devel-Doit
44 5 * * * cd /opt/src ; /usr/bin/xvfb-run ./R-aop-Doit
Those scripts update the R source code (development version and patched
version of latest official release, respectively), compile and install
from scratch, and update (if necessary) some contributed packages for
these R versions.
I do not have iplots among the packages that I need for these R
versions, but I do have rgl and upgrades of the latter work (without
the need of setting any environment variables).
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Berwin