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Authorized Users

Source: vignettes/authorized-users.Rmd
authorized-users.Rmd
library(databraryr)
#> Welcome to the databraryr package.

Requesting authorization

Access to restricted data requires registration and formal approval by an institution. The registration process involves the creation of an (email-account-based) user account and secure password. Once institutional authorization has been granted, a user may gain access to shared video, audio, and other data. See https://databrary.org/about.html for more information about gaining access to restricted data.

Many commands in the databraryr package return meaningful results without or prior to formal authorization.

Once you are authorized

Congratulations! Your institution has approved your access to Databrary’s identifiable data. Now, it’s time to set-up databraryr so you can access these materials.

Once you are authorized, you will gain access to a much wider range of materials on Databrary. When that happens, you’ll load the package with library(databraryr) and then run login_db(email = "<YOUR_EMAIL@PROVIDER.COM>"), substituting your actual Databrary account for <YOUR_EMAIL@PROVIDER.COM>, of course. I prefer to give the package name when I do this, so the following is how I do the same thing.

As of 0.6.0, the package supports http request using the httr2 package. This produces far more transparent responses, but requires a small bit of preparation on the user’s part. First, we generate and store in a variable a default http request.

Then we give that request to other functions, as needed. For example, to call login_db(), we do so as follows:

databraryr::login_db(email = "<YOUR_EMAIL@PROVIDER.COM>", rq = drq)

If this is the first time you’ve logged in, you will be asked to enter your Databrary password in a separate window. If everything works out, you should see the function return TRUE. Congratulations, you are ready to access Databrary’s restricted shared information along with any private, but unshared information you have access to.

NOTE: You can save yourself some time if you store your Databrary login (email) as an environment variable:

  1. Install the usethis package via install.packages('usethis').
  2. Run usethis::edit_r_environ(). This will open your .Renviron file in a new window.
  3. Edit the .Renviron file by adding a line with DATABRARY_LOGIN="youremail@yourinstitution.edu", substituting your actual Databrary login email.
  4. Save the file, and restart R.

Now, you can run Sys.getenv("DATABRARY_LOGIN"), and it will return your Databrary login.

And going forward, you can use Sys.getenv("DATABRARY_LOGIN") wherever you would enter your Databrary login:

databraryr::login_db(email = Sys.getenv("DATABRARY_LOGIN"), rq = drq)

NOTE: You can also save yourself even more time by storing your Databrary user account (email) and password in your computer’s secure credentials database using the keyring package. The keyring package uses the encrypted file that your computer’s operating system uses for storing other passwords. There are alternative ways of storing user credentials, but this is the recommended one.

To do this for the first time, use the store and overwrite parameters in login_db():

databraryr::login_db(email = "<YOUR_EMAIL@PROVIDER.COM>", store = TRUE,
                     overwrite = TRUE, rq = drq)

This overwrites and securely stores your credentials, so that the next time you log in, you need only use this command:

databraryr::login_db(email = "<YOUR_EMAIL@PROVIDER.COM>", store = TRUE, 
                     rq = drq)

or if you’ve stored your email as an environment variable:

databraryr::login_db(email = Sys.getenv("DATABRARY_LOGIN"), store = TRUE, 
                     rq = drq)

Logging out

The package also has a log out command.

databraryr::logout_db(rq = drq)

NOTE: Most databraryr functions have a verbose (vb) parameter. If you set this to TRUE, you will get more information about what’s going on behind the scenes. I use this to debug workflows.