I have just started using Conda locally to learn before taking it to work. I'm a new sysadmin and my predecessor maintained a restricted list of python packages on all cluster systems like a dictator. I don't want to be one.
Does conda cloning the environment mean I can just copy the project directory to another server and expect my program to run without it looking for the packages on the internet?
No, the intended way of cloning works by exporting the exact specifications to a text file and re-creating the environment from the text file.
If you use packages from conda channels (which are repositories of packages), then it should work flawlessly. Usually basically everything is available from either the official channel (anaconda) or some community channel (like conda-forge). At least in the data-science domain. I'm not really familiar with the python web-development scene, so not sure about that.
Edit: actually once I had to copy an environment from one machine to another (because of connection problems), and I seem to recall that worked too, but I don't think this method is officially supported.
Well, as my edit says, I've had success with installing anaconda on an other machine and copying the environment folder to the proper place inside the installation, but AFAIK that's not an officially supported way of doing it.
It does work, AFAIK, but you can also move it around on a single machine if you rerun "virtualenv <dir>" on the env (it fixes the links). It's been a while since I've done that, so I'm not sure if it still works, but it should.
EDIT: Yeah, just tried it again, it rewrites the shell files so everything works again. It even uses the same python version as you used.
I have just started using Conda locally to learn before taking it to work. I'm a new sysadmin and my predecessor maintained a restricted list of python packages on all cluster systems like a dictator. I don't want to be one.
Does conda cloning the environment mean I can just copy the project directory to another server and expect my program to run without it looking for the packages on the internet?