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Anaconda Platform 7.0.0 is available through a limited early access program. Contact your Anaconda Technical Account Manager (TAM) if you’re interested in adopting the latest version.
A channel in Anaconda Platform is a managed distribution point for packages—a location where mirrored or uploaded packages are stored, indexed, and made available to authorized users based on the channel’s privacy settings and applied policy or mirroring filters. Subchannels provide an additional hierarchical level within your channels. While subchannels reside within channels, they operate independently and are not constrained by the configurations applied to the parent channel, meaning that subchannels can have their own unique mirroring configurations, privacy settings, policies, and so on.
Visibility and management of channel features depend on your assigned role.For example:
  • Mirror creation requires Write or Manage permissions for Channel Mirrors/Subchannel Mirrors.
  • Policy creation requires Write or Manage permissions for the Policy Engine.
For more information, see Permissions.
Channels list view in Anaconda Platform
Administrator’s can view all channels in the system, or just the channels that they own and have access to through group permissions.

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Creating channels

  1. Select Channels from the left-hand navigation.
  2. Select Create Channel.
    Create channel button
  3. Complete the Create Channel form.
  4. Select Create.

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Create channel form

The Create Channel form allows you to set configurations for a channel. Let’s take a look at the different sections of the Create Channel form and what configurations they control:
Create channel form configurations
1

Channel Name

Enter a unique name for your channel.
2

Description (Optional)

Enter a brief description of the channel and its intended use.
3

Privacy

Set the privacy level of your channel:
4

Assign Policy

Policies only apply to conda artifacts within a channel. For more information, see Policies.
5

Mirroring Filters

Set filters for packages if you are mirroring from PyPI or CRAN repository sources. Mirror filters must use MatchSpec protocol to specify packages.
Package dependencies are not automatically mirrored when using MatchSpec protocol.

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Viewing channel information

Channels and subchannels have an Overview tab that includes helpful information such as usage instructions, configuration details, and metadata information.
  1. Select Channels from the left-hand navigation.
  2. Select a channel from the list to view its details.
Private channels display a beside their name.
Channels that have a policy applied to them display a beside their name.
Channels details page
Click Name or Last updated in the table header to sort your channels and subchannels.

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Viewing channel changes

Package availability within a channel can change as mirror synchronizations run, policies are enforced, and packages are manually uploaded or removed. The Channel Changes tab provides a complete record of every addition and removal in a channel, including the reason for each change and when it occurred. Use channel changes to investigate missing packages, verify that policies are being enforced, or confirm that no unexpected changes occurred before running a workflow.
  1. Select Channels from the left-hand navigation.
  2. Open a channel and select the Channel Changes tab.
Channel Changes tab showing a table of package additions and removals
The table displays the following information:
  • File Name: The filename of the affected package artifact
  • Package: The package name
  • Version: The package version
  • Date: The date the change occurred
  • Change: Whether the package was added or removed
  • Change Reason: The reason the change was made
  • Details: Additional context about the change
Use the controls at the bottom of the table to navigate between pages of changes.

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Filtering channel changes

To narrow the list of changes, select the filter icon in the upper-right corner of the table. The Channel Changes Filter panel opens on the right side of the screen. You can filter by the following:
  • Package: Enter a package name to locate it in the dropdown list, then select it to add it to the filter.
  • Change Reason: Select a reason from the dropdown list to show packages that were added or removed for that reason.
  • Date: Select After or Before from the dropdown, then choose a date using the calendar picker.
After setting your filters, select Apply. To remove all filters, select Clear.

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Downloading a channel changes report

To export channel changes as an Excel spreadsheet, select the download icon in the upper-right corner of the table. The spreadsheet includes the complete set of recorded changes for the channel. If filters are applied, only the filtered results are included in the download.

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Editing channels

  1. Select Channels from the left-hand navigation.
  2. Select the channel from the list.
  3. Select Edit Channel.
  4. Update channel configurations as needed.
  5. Select Save.

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Managing channels

Some channel tasks can be performed from the Quick Actions menu on the Overview tab. For all other channel management tasks, open the channel actions dropdown:
Channel actions dropdown menu

Create Mirror

Open the Create mirror form to configure and initiate a new mirror for the channel.
Anaconda recommends only one mirror per channel or subchannel to avoid package source conflicts.

Assign Group

Assigning a group to a channel provides members of the group with access to the channel and its contents at a specified permission level (Read/Write/Manage).For more information, see Groups.

Add Subchannel

Create a new subchannel within the current channel.

Rebuild Index

Manually rebuild the channel index. This ensures all of the channel’s artifacts are listed in the Packages tab.

Download CVE Report

Download a CVE report for all packages in the channel in a .csv file.For more information, see Downloading CVE reports.

Freeze/Unfreeze Channel

Prevent or allow the channel index from being rebuilt when artifacts are added to the channel.Mirroring consumes a large amount of CPU resources. Each time an artifact is added to the channel during mirroring, the channel index is rebuilt to include the artifact in the channel’s Packages tab. To conserve or reduce your CPU usage, freeze your channel before creating a mirror. While the channel is frozen, the index is not rebuilt when artifacts are added. Once the mirror completes, unfreeze the channel to rebuild the index.If you unfreeze your channel before your mirror completes, the indexing operations for artifacts registered while the channel was frozen will occur simultaneously. Once those indexing operations are complete, the mirror resumes performing normal indexing operations for artifacts as they are registered from the mirror’s source.
The Rebuild Index option is disabled while a channel is frozen, and packages cannot be moved, copied, or deleted from the channel.
Frozen channels display a Frozen tag on the Channels page and a Frozen indexing status in the Channel Metadata on the Overview tab.

Delete channel

Delete the channel and its contents.
You cannot delete a channel that contains subchannels.
You cannot delete your default channel.

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Adding a channel to your .condarc file

If you want to use packages from a channel in your conda environments, you need to add the channel to your .condarc file. This informs conda of where to look for packages when you run conda commands. To add a channel to your .condarc file, run the following command: 
conda config --add channels http(s)://<FQDN>/api/repo/<CHANNEL>
Conda automatically installs a package’s dependencies along with the package itself when that package is requested from the channel. If a dependency is not available due to an applied policy filter, you will not be able to build a working environment with the packages from the current channel.
This command assumes that you have set the channel alias in your .condarc file to your Anaconda Platform URL. For more information and help setting your channel alias, see Set a channel alias in the official conda documentation.

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Setting your default channel

Your Default Channel is the channel Anaconda Platform uses when you perform actions from the CLI without specifying a channel. You can change your default channel at any time if your role provides Manage permissions for the Default Channel category.
  1. Open the user dropdown and select Set Default Channel.
  2. Start typing to search for and select the channel you want to set as your default.
    You can only set channels you own as your Default Channel.
  3. Select Save.

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Managing channels with the CLI

If you want to create and manage your channels using the CLI, see Anaconda Platform CLI.

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Managing channels with the API

You can also use the API to perform various functions for channels and subchannels. Access the API interface and view the API documentation by logging in as an administrator user, opening a new tab, and then navigating to http(s)://<FQDN>/swagger/ui, replacing <FQDN> with your Anaconda Platform fully qualified domain name. The following is a list of available endpoints you can use to manage your channels in Anaconda Platform.

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Viewing channels you can access

GET /api/channels/
GET /api/account/channels

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Creating a channel

POST /api/channels

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Creating a subchannel

POST /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels

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Viewing channel details

GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/artifacts
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/history
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/mirrors
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels

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Viewing subchannel details

GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>/artifacts
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>/history
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>/mirrors

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Editing a channel

PUT /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>

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Editing a subchannel

PUT /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>

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Deleting a channel

DELETE /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>

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Deleting a subchannel

DELETE /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>

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Running the blob cleanup tool

DELETE /api/system/blob_cleanup
POST /api/system/blob_cleanup
POST /api/diagnose/blobs

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Channel service accounts

GET /api/users
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/service-accounts
GET /api/channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>/service-accounts
CRUD /channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/service-accounts/<USER_ID>/tokens
CRUD /channels/<CHANNEL_NAME>/subchannels/<SUBCHANNEL_NAME>/service-accounts/<USER_ID>/tokens