Installing packages without internet access

[Preeti Gill]

Hello,

Due to data security restrictions, I work on an unnetworked computer. Getting updates or installing packages is something I need to learn to do manually.

(1) Is there a SSC INSTALL or NET INSTALL command that will provide me with all of the available packages?

(2) Is there a way to read in packages from a file path? I used SSC COPY PACKAGENAME to pull the package, but I am not able to read it in from the designated folder. I tried SSC INSTALL PACKAGENAME, FROM (C:/path)

Here is the document I referenced: http://www.stata.com/manuals13/rssc.pdf

Thanks!
Preeti

NOTE: This is a repost due to a poorly phrased subject heading.

[Oded Mcdossi]

You can copy your plus folder (which contains all of the user written ado files) from your personal computer, you can find the location of the folder by

sysdir

and paste in a place you have restriction in the unnetworked computer. Then, every time you open Stata just refer to your own new plus folder:

sysdir set PLUS "C:/your folder...."

[Preeti Gill]

Hmm, that didn't seem to work. Here is what I did:

Code:
sysdir
sysdir set PLUS "C:\path"
ssc install png2rtf

Is there something incorrect with my code?

[Oded Mcdossi]

You should first install the program you want on your plus folder in your personal computer (the one that connect to the internet). Then, copy the entire plus folder with all its contents and paste it in the unnetworked computer (in your C:\path, for example) . After you paste it, open Stata and type sysdir set PLUS "C:\path" .

[Preeti Gill]

Thank you, Odred. I tried doing that, but I'm having no luck. Would you mind taking a look at my code? I'm wondering if I'm just going about the install incorrectly.

. sysdir
   STATA:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Stata14\
    BASE:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Stata14\ado\base\
    SITE:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Stata14\ado\site\
    PLUS:  c:\ado\plus\
PERSONAL:  c:\ado\personal\
OLDPLACE:  c:\ado\
 
. sysdir set PLUS "C:\Users\LocalUser\Documents\Bio 604\PGM\Stata packa
> ges"
 
. ssc install png2rtf
host not found
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/p/ either
  1)  is not a valid URL, or
  2)  could not be contacted, or
  3)  is not a Stata download site (has no stata.toc file).
r(631);

[Nick Cox]

#5: You've just told Stata where to put whatever ssc would install. That won't help if you have no internet access to SSC, which is necessary for ssc to work. It's like having a guest bedroom made up but not telling a friend where you live.

It's not what Oded was recommending in #4 in any case. You need to install using ssc on one computer and then copy the results to the PLUS directory on the other computer.

[Preeti Gill]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the reply. I keep feeling like that is what I did. I used SSC COPY to pull the package I am interested in, then copied that over to the PLUS folder I created on my unnetworked computer. Are you and Oded saying that I don't need to worry about installing the package once I have pointed the PLUS folder to the location where the package is stored?

Thanks!
Preeti

[Preeti Gill]

A coworker and I figured out the following solution that worked for me:

On the networked computer:
1. use the command WHICH PACKAGE_NAME to get the path that Stata has set up for the package
2. rename the downloaded package (from SSC COPY) to have the same extension as shown in the path from the WHICH PACKAGE_NAME command (in this case ".ado")

On the unnetworked computer:
3. recreate the same folder structure as on the networked computer and place the newly named package in the folder
4. type WHICH PACKAGE_NAME to double check if Stata read it in correctly
5. run and enjoy

[Iryna Demko]

Hi Preeti Gill,

Following your steps. #3:

on the un-networked computer
. which xtabond2
E:\plus\x\xtabond2.ado
*! xtabond2 3.6.3 30 September 2015
*! Copyright (C) 2015 David Roodman

. ssc install xtabond2
host not found
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/x/ either
1) is not a valid URL, or
2) could not be contacted, or
3) is not a Stata download site (has no stata.toc file).
r(631);

[Nick Cox]

Iryna: Same answer as to your essentially identical question at http://www.statalist.org/forums/foru...net-connection

[Iryna Demko]

I would like to contribute here with an update to Preete's instructions.

After I recreate the same folder structure as on the networked computer and copied the newly named package in the folder, STATA would still give an error (http://www.statalist.org/forums/foru...net-connection)

What helped was restarting a computer!