R read.table read data from remote server hangs

[SteveR]

I am trying to run a remote command on a linux server via SSH and pipe the results back to R to be read into a local variable, as follows
d <- read.table(pipe('ssh -l myuser remoteIP "cat /xxx/fruit.txt"'))
The command hangs, and when I kill the linux process, I see a prompt for a password pop up. When I run the SSH command from Linux, it succeeds with the prompt for a password. How do I configure for the password to be populated in SSH, or for the prompt for the password to appear in the R Console?

[technocrat]

@SteveR

d <- read.table(pipe('ssh -l myuser remoteIP "cat /byr/warehouse/byr0sxs1/fruit.txt"'))

Within R this is running in nested environments from the inside out, so it's just if you were running

pipe('ssh -l myuser remoteIP "cat /byr/warehouse/byr0sxs1/fruit.txt"')

all by itself and pipe dispatches the system command and read.table awaits its completion. Since the system ssh is awaiting its authentication, pipe never delivers.

How to fix depends on your security posture. One approach would be to authenticate by certificate to bypass the password dialog.