R install.package() paramaterize download.file() with options()

I am running a Jenkins build and leveraging the r-base docker image.

I'm trying to install devtools I suspect that the Self-Signed certificates are my problem.

When I try to install the package.

install.packages("devtools", 
                 method = options("extra", " --insecure --user"))

I get the following error

 'arg' must be NULL or a character vector

How can setup package.install to ignore the certificates? From what I've read I need to parameterize the download.file() with options() for the method parameter in install.packages() but I cannot figure out how.

NOTE: I am not an R programmer, if this is something basic, I am happy to learn if there is an R tutorial on stuff like this somewhere.

What am I doing wrong with method = options(...) and how can I pass -k or --insecure to libcurl?

Solution

To download.file with method = "libcurl" and some extra options, pass those values in the respective arguments to the download file function.

install.packages("devtools", method = "libcurl", extra = " --insecure --user")

These options can be set with options(). The example below sets the method an other, extra, download file options. The previous settings are saved in old_opt.

libcurl_opts <- list(
  download.file.method = "libcurl",
  download.file.extra = " --insecure --user"
)

old_opt <- options(libcurl_opts)

Check to see it worked.

getOption("download.file.method")
#[1] "libcurl"

Now reset when done.

options(old_opt)
getOption("download.file.method")
#NULL