How to share an Anaconda Python environment between multiple users?

Question

I have Anaconda 5.1 Python distribution installed (by the system admin) on Windows 10, for all users. I can create an environment and then view the available environments:

λ conda create --name py35 python=3.5 anaconda

...

λ conda env list
# conda environments:
#
base    *  C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3
py35       C:\Users\<my-user-name>\AppData\Local\conda\conda\envs\py35

When I log in as a different user, however, only the base environment is visible/available. How can I create an environment and make it available to all users of the system?

The documentation discusses multi-user installations, but I cannot see how to make environments available to other users.

Answer 1

1- If you want to add a directory to the environment directories you can use this command:

conda config --add envs_dirs the/path/to/my/env

You need to replace "the/path/to/my/env" with the full path to the env folder. For example, if I want to add the following path to environment directories

D:\Anaconda3\envs

I'll execute

conda config --add envs_dirs D:\Anaconda3\envs

To see the list of all environment directories (and other configs) you can run this:

conda config --show

2- A better way to do this is to create the environment in a directory accessible to all users. To do that you can create the Conda env using "--prefix" or "-p" like the following command:

conda create --prefix the/path/to/my/env

For activation:

conda activate the/path/to/my/env

For example:

conda create --prefix "D:/Shared_Conda_Env"

which can be activated by all users using

conda activate "D:/Shared_Conda_Env"

Answer 2

In case Linux user will be interested, I find a most easiest way to figure out this issue, as long as the other person open the corresponding permission to you, you can simply soft link it to your own env folder:

presuming you are using miniconda, soft link the other user's env folder (ex. Python312) to your own ~/miniconda3/envs

 cd ~/miniconda3/envs/
 ln -s /home/to/otheruser/miniconda3/envs/Python312 ./

that's it, you can find a new env by 'conda env list' without switching to other user or exporting path etc.

Answer 3

The Conda-Cheatseet here lists these following commands.

Save Environment:

conda list --explicit > my-env.txt

Create Environment:

conda env create --file my-env.txt

Answer 4

The key here is adding the path to the folder containing the environment(s) to the user's conda configuration file .condarc. Like this:

envs_dirs:
  - C:\full\path\to\environments\folder

This makes all the environments (subfolders within) available to the user. It does not appear to be possible to make a specific, named environment available.

As has been pointed out, you can create an environment in a specific location using the -p flag, and then add the parent directory to the configuration file, but this is not a requirement. This may be useful, however, to avoid permissions errors if sharing environments that exists in protected user areas.

On Windows 10, my user configuration file was in C:\Users\<my-user-name>\, and I just added the above text to the end of it.

Answer 5

I would shy away from sharing environments with other users, because if they don't know what they are doing, they could add packages that could conflict with other packages and/or even delete packages that another user might need. The preferred approach is that after you have created an environment, you export it as a yml file:

conda env export > environment.yml

Then you send the users the yml file and have them build their own environment using the yml:

conda env create -f environment.yml

If you really want to use a shared environment where every user can access, then you have to use the -p or --prefix option in your create:

conda create -p C:/full/public/path/to/py35 python=3.5

And then instruct your users to add the public path (C:/full/public/path/to) to their conda config file. Then, they should be able to see the environment when running conda env list.