If ~/.condarc is a symlink non-default channels do not work

[andrsd]

Checklist

• I added a descriptive title
• I searched open reports and couldn't find a duplicate

What happened?

In my setup, I have several .condarc.XYZ files and I used a symlink from .condarc to one of those based on what I needed. This was done for debugging purposes when I was developing a new conda adapter.

I upgraded conda from 23.5.x to 23.7.0 and my non-default channel (conda-forge) disappeared.

This is what conda info gave with 23.5.x:

     active environment : bld
    active env location : /<homedir>/miniconda3/envs/bld
            shell level : 2
       user config file : /<homedir>/.condarc
 populated config files : /<homedir>/.condarc
          conda version : 23.5.1
    conda-build version : not installed
         python version : 3.9.16.final.0
       virtual packages : __archspec=1=arm64
                          __osx=13.5=0
                          __unix=0=0
       base environment : /<homedir>/miniconda3  (writable)
      conda av data dir : /<homedir>/miniconda3/etc/conda
  conda av metadata url : None
           channel URLs : https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/osx-arm64
                          https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/osx-arm64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/osx-arm64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
          package cache : /<homedir>/miniconda3/pkgs
                          /<homedir>/.conda/pkgs
       envs directories : /<homedir>/miniconda3/envs
                          /<homedir>/.conda/envs
               platform : osx-arm64
             user-agent : conda/23.5.1 requests/2.31.0 CPython/3.9.16 Darwin/22.6.0 OSX/13.5 solver/libmamba conda-libmamba-solver/23.7.0 libmambapy/1.4.9
                UID:GID : 501:20
             netrc file : /<homedir>/.netrc
           offline mode : False

This is conda info with 23.7.0:

     active environment : bld
    active env location : /<homedir>/miniconda3/envs/bld
            shell level : 2
       user config file : /<homedir>/.condarc
 populated config files : 
          conda version : 23.7.0
    conda-build version : not installed
         python version : 3.9.16.final.0
       virtual packages : __archspec=1=arm64
                          __osx=13.5=0
                          __unix=0=0
       base environment : /<homedir>/miniconda3  (writable)
      conda av data dir : /<homedir>/miniconda3/etc/conda
  conda av metadata url : None
           channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/osx-arm64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/osx-arm64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
          package cache : /<homedir>/miniconda3/pkgs
                          /<homedir>/.conda/pkgs
       envs directories : /<homedir>/miniconda3/envs
                          /<homedir>/.conda/envs
               platform : osx-arm64
             user-agent : conda/23.7.0 requests/2.31.0 CPython/3.9.16 Darwin/22.6.0 OSX/13.5
                UID:GID : 501:20
             netrc file : /<homedir>/.netrc
           offline mode : False

Notice that populated config files is empty.

The content of ~/.condarc:

report_errors: false
channels:
  - conda-forge
  - defaults

I tested this on OSX (macbook pro with apple M1) and linux (amd64 debian).

This is not a show stopper for me, I can go back to the regular file for .condarc. Thought you may want to know about this. Or, if somebody runs into a the same problem, hopefully they will find this issue.

Conda Info

See above for more details...

Conda Config

==> envvars <==
number_channel_notices: 0

Conda list

No response

Additional Context

No response

[travishathaway]

Hi @andrsd,

Thanks for reporting this. I have been able to recreate this issue myself, so I can confirm this regression. Your workaround seems reasonable in the meantime, but I think we should restore this behavior.

I cannot promise when we will get around to fixing this, but I will tag it as a good-first issue so it hopefully gets more attention and will bring it up with my colleagues.

[dholth]

This code resolves the symlink, and THEN checks that the resolved path is in CONDARC_FILENAMES (.condarc, condarc) or if the suffix (extension) is in YAML_EXTENSIONS (.yml, .yaml).

conda/conda/common/configuration.py

Lines 1395 to 1401 in e67f5e4

	else:
	template = custom_expandvars(search, environ, **kwargs)
	path = Path(template).expanduser().resolve()
	if path.is_file() and (
	path.name in CONDARC_FILENAMES or path.suffix in YAML_EXTENSIONS
	):

I copied ~/.condarc to ~/linkto-condarc and then symlinked it. Conda ignores the file because the symlink's target does not pass the test.

[andrsd]

Thanks for fixing this! 👍