Customizing environment templates by using conda and mamba

A channel is the location URL where libraries and packages are stored and from where packages can be downloaded at the time when the environment runtime is started. Depending on your system settings, you can use public repositories, private repositories or file servers to customize your environment templates.

Required roles

• You need Admin or Editor permissions on the project to create an environment template and add a software configuration.

You can use the following formats to refer to channels. Both conda and mamba support this syntax:

• defaults: Specifies the default set of public channels which are automatically searched.
• https://some.custom/channel: Enables specifying the entire URL of the repository channel, for example https://yoururl.com:port/conda/channel. This format enables accessing private repository servers.
• file:///some/local/directory: Enables specifying a mounted network drive, including the path to the drive, by prepending with file:///. This format enables access to private repositories on file systems.

Your platform administrator can change the conda or mamba channel configuration to access private repositories by modifying the conda runtime configuration file, .condarc to configure:

• If and how to use a proxy server to access repositories
• Channels where conda or mamba searches for packages

A platform administrator can also define a separate and secure network with fine-grained access control to library repositories (binary repository manager), for example JFrog Artifactory, for library storage and access. For details, see IBM Software Hub documentation.

Refer to Examples of environment template customizations.