[R-pkg-devel] CRAN submissions down?

On 12 Jan 2026, at 14:37, Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal via R-package-devel <r-package-devel at r-project.org> wrote:

For what it is worth in my case as far as I can tell the behaviors of both devtools::submit_cran and the cran machine were quote reasonable,  even if it caused me a little pain.  The block Uwe describes sounds like fail2ban or the like,  and given the junk we see hitting our services  it is a reasonable thing to run.  I had the day wrong when I thought cran was back up.  devtools on submission said ti couldn?t connect,  It is not unreasonable as a submitter, thinking the machine was back up,  to wait a bit,  and  try again,  and maybe do so a few times throughout the day.  That is indeed what I did.  Then to be sure it wasn?t a devtools problem I went to the web page  and that is when it seemed to block me. 

So my point is everything to my mind behaved reasonably.  The only thing I could suggest,  and I have no idea of how much work this would entail, and I am not looking to make work for people,  is perhaps a banner on the webpage when the service is down,

 and if possible have the server return to programs  like devtools an error that the service is down.

I can?t speak for why others were blocked,  but as I said this all seems reasonable.

Thanks,

-Roy

On Jan 11, 2026, at 4:08?PM, Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de> wrote:



On 11.01.2026 15:19, Hadley Wickham wrote:

Thanks for the fix!
Happy to chat about what devtools could do better here to avoid future problems.

We try to find out why submissions got blocked. I guess devtools tried multiple times to open some webpage that was shut down and then the corresponding IP got auto blocked for too many connections within a time frame (which is why I get blocked by WU Vienna few times a year). We hope to get feedback from the sysadmins soon.


Best,
Uwe

Hadley
On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 9:40?AM Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.tu- dortmund.de <mailto:ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de>> wrote:
  It seems some people tried to submit with devtools during the CRAN
  vacations while the submission webpage was deactivated.
  Not sure what devtools does, but it seems some partial submission was
  possible that way (just incomplete) and that may have caused a pattern
  that lead to the IP block.
  At least we had some reports about the above mentioned szenario. The
  sysadmin team tries to resolve this.
  Perhaps simply send your IP to cran-sysadmin at R-project.org
  for a quick solution.
  Best,
  Uwe
  On 09.01.2026 16:32, Hadley Wickham wrote:

Hmmm, I tried from my phone and it worked once, but I tried again

  now and

it didn't work either. This is the traceroute I see, in case it means
anything to anyone.

traceroute to xmpalantir.wu.ac.at <http://xmpalantir.wu.ac.at>

  (137.208.57.16), 64 hops max, 40 byte

packets
 1  192.168.4.1 (192.168.4.1)  7.828 ms  3.684 ms  5.233 ms
 2  192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254)  7.409 ms  5.343 ms  5.369 ms
 3 104-186-12-1.lightspeed.hstntx.sbcglobal.net

  <http://104-186-12-1.lightspeed.hstntx.sbcglobal.net>
  (104.186.12.1)  6.222 ms

 6.569 ms  10.912 ms
 4  71.149.39.62 (71.149.39.62)  5.816 ms  6.046 ms  4.386 ms
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  * * *
 8  * * *
 9  * * 192.205.37.10 (192.205.37.10)  11.947 ms
10 dls-b24-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://dls-b24-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.139.131)  138.944 ms  140.363 ms

dls-b23-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://dls-b23-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.138.65)  141.967 ms

11 dls-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://dls-bb1-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.136.118)  12.237 ms  12.013 ms

 14.187 ms
12  * * nash-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://nash-bb1-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.44)  100.600 ms

13 atl-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://atl-bb1-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.54)  32.449 ms  32.397 ms

 31.204 ms
14 rest-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://rest-bb1-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.138.70)  46.045 ms *  58.522 ms

15 prs-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://prs-bb1-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.140.104)  120.740 ms  134.808 ms *

16 ffm-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://ffm-bb1-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.123.12)  126.600 ms  128.108 ms

 173.614 ms
17 win-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://win-bb1-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.203)  137.453 ms  140.338 ms

 138.001 ms
18 win-b7-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://win-b7-

  link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.103)  139.714 ms  142.909 ms

 140.607 ms
19 nextlayer-ic-392861.ip.twelve99-cust.net <http://nextlayer-

  ic-392861.ip.twelve99-cust.net> (62.115.205.175)  142.257 ms

 139.253 ms  139.711 ms
20  * * *
21  * * *
22  193.171.13.18 (193.171.13.18)  135.095 ms  139.585 ms  133.808 ms
23 vpn.wu-wien.ac.at <http://vpn.wu-wien.ac.at> (137.208.9.41)     135.997 ms  140.398 ms  138.908 ms

Hadley

On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 8:46?AM Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal <
roy.mendelssohn at noaa.gov <mailto:roy.mendelssohn at noaa.gov>> wrote:

I can reach it from your work address but not from my home

  address.  When

I do a traceroute from home I get blocked at the last step.

HTH,

-Roy

On Jan 9, 2026, at 6:29?AM, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org

  <mailto:edd at debian.org>> wrote:

On 9 January 2026 at 08:11, Hadley Wickham wrote:
| Is this just a me problem, or is

https://xmpalantir.wu.ac.at/cransubmit/ <https://

  xmpalantir.wu.ac.at/cransubmit/>

| down for others too?

ciw::ciw() |> head()

   Folder                  Name                Time   Size            Age
   <char>                <char>              <POSc> <char>

  <difftime>

1: pretest     NNS_11.6.4.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:26:00   1.9M

  0.04 hours

2: pretest   ggsced_0.1.2.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:21:00   348K

  0.12 hours

3: pretest  warprrr_0.1.0.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:10:00   1.0M

  0.30 hours

4: recheck    mapsf_1.1.0.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:07:00   1.4M

  0.35 hours

5: waiting     ripc_0.3.2.tar.gz 2026-01-09 14:56:00   103K

  0.54 hours

6: recheck rD3plot_1.1.45.tar.gz 2026-01-09 14:20:00   2.2M

  1.14 hours

Five uploads in the last hour may suggest it is a 'you' problem.

Dirk

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