How to specify system requirements for r-universe builds

[pepijn-devries]

Currently, I'm working on a package that uses static libraries:

https://github.com/pepijn-devries/openmpt

Therefore, it has system requirements ensuring that the libraries are available on the machine it runs on. I've included the requirements here:

https://github.com/rstudio/r-system-requirements

This will ensure that the rhub workflow on github will succefully build the package on Linux machines. However, when setting the package up for r-universe, the build fails (https://pepijn-devries.r-universe.dev/builds). This is because the system requirements are not installed.

Does anyone have know how to set this up correctly?

Many thanks for your help!

[jeroen]

It is explained here: https://docs.r-universe.dev/publish/debug-build.html#how-to-request-additional-third-party-system-requirements

If it is in r-system-requirements it should work. I'll have a look.

[jeroen]

Hmm if I run remotes::system_requirements('ubuntu-22.04') inside your package dir, the sysdep does not show up. Are you sure the regex matches?

[jeroen]

I'm going to try to switch to pak for installing sysreqs:

pak::pkg_sysreqs('.', sysreqs_platform='ubuntu-24.04')$install_script

[pepijn-devries]

Thanks, that does look promising...

[pepijn-devries]

It did help a bit. The source package is now built at r-universe, but the binary for Linux is not. This too is because of the missing system requirements

[jeroen]

Yes I know, need to fix this in several places...

[pepijn-devries]

Ah OK. I was too fast to test ;). Thanks again.

[jeroen]

It should work now, I switched the system dependency resolver to pak: r-universe-org/build-source@1554177

However this is still tentative because we had some troubles in the past with pak hanging, so if that happens again we may need to find another solution.

[pepijn-devries]

Thanks! In this case it seems to work for now!

[jeroen]

Ugh we may have to revert, pak is hanging again https://github.com/r-universe/adafede/actions/runs/11686437398/job/32542209386

[pepijn-devries]

OK. I thought learning to use static libraries in R would be fun 😆. At least I'm learning a lot 😌...

[jeroen]

Trying this workaround r-universe-org/build-source@d2a1418

[sebffischer]

I think I am also experiencing a related issue.

I have my package anvil (https://github.com/r-xla/anvil) which depends on (https://github.com/r-xla/pjrt), which has system dependencies.
I don't want to put it onto CRAN for now, so I put my r-xla r-universe into the Additional_repositories field: https://github.com/r-xla/anvil/blob/579f42a6d78d19e4b3f4459ac158070762225dff/DESCRIPTION#L35

In my github action CI, I also specify my r-universe as an extra-repository: https://github.com/r-xla/anvil/blob/579f42a6d78d19e4b3f4459ac158070762225dff/.github/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml#L74, but for some reason, the github action workflow on ubuntu fails: https://github.com/r-xla/anvil/actions/runs/18902349676/job/53952342770 because the system dependency of anvil's dependence {pjrt} (libprotobuf etc.) is not installed properly.

[sebffischer]

Also the problem happens only when anvil installs the pjrt dependency from r-universe and not from GitHub, so I think the issue is related to r-universe

[jeroen]

I think I understand the issue. I'll try to fix it.

The problem is that R-universe automatically detects and normalizes the system dependencies, but it does not know that protobuf needs an extra package at build time. See the _sysdeps field on https://r-xla.r-universe.dev/api/packages/pjrt

[sebffischer]

thanks!

[jeroen]

Added a workaround, could you test if your problem is solved now?

[sebffischer]

thanks, works like a charm!