Can I require authentication to RStudio Package Manager or its repositories?

Unfortunately, RStudio Package Manager doesn't have a way to restrict repositories to specific users at this time.

To explain further, user authentication with RStudio Package manager is not possible since R itself does not support authentication within the install.packages() command on a CRAN mirror (RSPM).

In order to support authentication on a CRAN mirror, the install.packages() function would need to be changed.  Since base R is outside of our purview, it would at least involve a new R package with authentication support on a CRAN mirror in addition to the product changes.

Given the above challenges we're not able to provide an estimate on when or if something like this will be available.

In the meantime, we'd suggest trying to do this on a policy level, by asking that only specific groups use specific repository URLs. See here for more on how you might implement that: https://docs.rstudio.com/rspm/admin/rstudio-server/#allow-users-to-optionally-add-additional-repos