port 28060 tcp is related to R?

Question

OS is mint 18.2. subset output of netstat -ltnu is below.

tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:631           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:28060         0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:4381          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:42155           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:57621           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp        0      0 127.0.1.1:53            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp6       0      0 ::1:631                 :::*                    LISTEN     
tcp6       0      0 :::3061                 :::*                    LISTEN

sessionInfo() out: R version 3.4.3 (2017-11-30) Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit) Running under: Linux Mint 18.2

Matrix products: default BLAS: /usr/lib/libblas/libblas.so.3.6.0 LAPACK: /usr/lib/lapack/liblapack.so.3.6.0

locale: [1] LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_CA.UTF-8
[7] LC_PAPER=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C LC_MEASUREMENT=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages: [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base

other attached packages: [1] qdapRegex_0.7.2 bindrcpp_0.2 openxlsx_4.0.17 gdata_2.18.0 readr_1.1.1 easypackages_0.1.0 readxl_1.0.0 stringr_1.2.0
[9] dplyr_0.7.4 plyr_1.8.4 data.table_1.10.4-3

loaded via a namespace (and not attached): [1] Rcpp_0.12.14 bindr_0.1 magrittr_1.5 hms_0.4.0 devtools_1.13.4 R6_2.2.2 rlang_0.1.4 tools_3.4.3 withr_2.1.0
[10] gtools_3.5.0 yaml_2.1.15 assertthat_0.2.0 digest_0.6.12 tibble_1.3.4 memoise_1.1.0 glue_1.2.0 stringi_1.1.6 compiler_3.4.3
[19] cellranger_1.1.0 pkgconfig_2.0.1

When I go to 127.0.0.1:28060 it says "Only NEWS and URLs under /doc and /library are allowed" with the R logo at top (forget what that icon is called.. favicon?). I found info via search about a package "Rook". never heard of it.

So is this a legit webserver made by R base (if so, why?)/R package?

what does lsof tell you? Specifically lsof -i TCP. Even w/o that, it looks like that's what the R help server bound itself to. — hrbrmstr
I killed the process. But if I reboot/see it again I will post the output. — user5050
it appears Rstudio is creating it, rsession 9521 x 15u IPv4 0t0 TCP localhost:27708 (LISTEN) is the output of lsof -i TCP. — user5050
what I meant to say is you are correct. thanks for identifying that. still, why does R help need to open an incoming connection? wouldn't this just be a typical outgoing connection? — user5050
So, this happens only if your run RStudio and not if your run Rgui? Please tag your question accordingly and add all relevant information to your question. — Roland

user2554330 user2554330 · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-14T11:07:13

The R help system runs an http service on a random port. You can find the port number for the current session (perhaps starting the service) by calling

print(tools::startDynamicHelp(NA))

or by running

help.start()

The latter will start a browser; you can see the port in the URL in the browser (if your browser displays URLs; the built-in one in RStudio doesn't).

port 28060 tcp is related to R?

1 Answers