In 2020, Anaconda (a Python development-environment/repository manager) changed its licensing from open source to a commercial license. It now requires any organization with more than 200 employees (regardless of how many are users) to buy a license. In 2024 as part of their annual audit, Anaconda found what they considered to be a significant amount of their products being used at Jefferson Lab. As a result, they required that the lab procure a site license or discontinue further use, transmission, and/or dissemination of Anaconda's proprietary data. This includes all documents, data, packages, and files downloaded from repo.anaconda.com.
Therefore, beginning Friday, May 17th, JLab blocked access to anaconda.com. This will prevent users from using Anaconda and Miniconda on their JLab systems, including the batch farm. However, there are alternatives available for individuals using Anaconda that will allow them to continue using the tools they're already familiar with by switching to open source repositories. If you are an affected user, you might encounter an error similar to the following:
Retrying (Retry(total=0, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'ConnectionResetError(104, 'Connection reset by peer')': /pkgs/main/linux-64/repodata.json.zst
failed
CondaHTTPError: HTTP 000 CONNECTION FAILED for url <https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/linux-64/repodata.json>
Elapsed: -
An HTTP error occurred when trying to retrieve this URL.
HTTP errors are often intermittent, and a simple retry will get you on your way.
If your current network has https://repo.anaconda.com blocked, please file
a support request with your network engineering team.
'https//repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/linux-64'If you would like to continue to have access to the core, package-managing component Conda, you can download and install to your /home or /work folder Miniforge, which is an open-source variant of the Conda suite that defaults to only using the freely-accessible conda-forge repository. This repository complies with requirements set upon the Lab by the Anaconda company.
With the latest conda, you should be able to adjust the channels for your existing installation by running the following two commands.
conda config --remove channels defaults; conda config --add channels conda-forge
Simply specifying the -c conda-forge as part of your environment specifications with new Conda environments is not enough to guarantee that the application will continue to work as expected.
If your group would like to discuss procurement of a license to use Anaconda and/or its defaults repository, please contact the Help Desk (helpdesk@jlab.org).