Cache conda packages for offline installation

Installing conda packages on a computer without internet is somewhat challenging. One common approach is to conda-pack your environment, transfer the pack, then "unpack" it on the other computer - link.

Here is an alternative way, perhaps easier, to achieve "clean" conda environment installation.

Start with the computer on which you have already installed the environment or you can install it.

1. On source (your or other working computer with the same processor architecture as the target)

# export the list of packages explicitly so you can download the files
$(base) conda list -n my_env --explicit > packages.wget

# Download the necessary packages
$ mkdir -p pkgs && cd pkgs 
$ wget -i ../packages.wget

2. Edit packages.wget to point to the local package copies.

awk -F '/' '/^http/ {print "pkgs/"$NF; next} {print} ' packages.wget > my_env-local.yaml

The awk script above will convert the http://... lines in packages.wget to pkgs/... i.e.

# From
https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/linux-64/sqlite-3.39.3-h5082296_0.conda

# to
pkgs/sqlite-3.39.3-h5082296_0.conda

3. Transfer the content of the pkgs folder to the target machine.

4. On the target machine - create and install the environment.

# From the folder that contains `pkgs`
$(base) conda create -n my_env --file my_env-local.yaml --offline

Contacts:

• Pavlin Mitev
• UPPMAX
• SNIC AE@UPPMAX - related documentation

tags: UPPMAX, SNIC, conda, bianca, offline