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[R-pkg-devel] An invalid URLs

5 messages · jared_wood, Richard M. Heiberger, Ivan Krylov +1 more

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I write an URL of MalaCards (a database) in my description, because I need the data in this database. However, there is an error here as followed:

 

 Found the following (possibly) invalid URLs:

    URL: http://www.malacards.org/

      From: DESCRIPTION

      Status: 403

      Message: Forbidden

 

I don?t know why. The URL was picked up in the article of this database and I can open it.

 

This is the first time that I develop a package, therefore I am eager for your help.

 

Thanks.



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jared_wood
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jared_wood at 163.com
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???????????
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Is it perhaps an https:// address?  You browser will make the
adjustment.  CRAN will give this message.
On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 10:08 PM jared_wood <jared_wood at 163.com> wrote:
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:49:03 +0800 (GMT+08:00)
jared_wood <jared_wood at 163.com> wrote:

            
To be fair, my requests to this service are also blocked unless I use
Tor Browser. This could be an aggressive case of GeoIP banning.
(Blocking a well-known university but not blocking Tor exit nodes? Talk
about security theatre.)

Another reason could be that R CMD check uses libcurl with its default
User-Agent: libcurl/A.BB.C to check URLs, and the remote server could
deny requests from such automated user agents, only allowing clients
that look like browsers. I have no data to confirm this hypothesis.
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 11:02:06 +0300
Ivan Krylov <krylov.r00t at gmail.com> wrote:

            
Here is what I have been able to observe:

If wait for some time, then try to access http://www.malacards.org/
using cURL, I start getting 403 errors in both cURL and browser.

If wait for some time, then go to http://www.malacards.org/ using a
browser and click on a few links, subsequent access using cURL from
the same IP address also starts working (for a while).

Given the paranoid nature of the website's security system, it's hard
to offer a good solution to your problem: linking to it may place
people running R CMD check into temporary ban, while not linking to it
does not seem polite.
3 days later
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On 13.03.2020 12:59, Ivan Krylov wrote:
Well, then mention the URL in plain text but not link....

Best,
Uwe Ligges