Cannot use DIRAC from conda

[acampove]

Hello DIRAC developers,

I wrote a project to automate the download of ntuples from the grid. This is a python project and has DIRAC as a dependency. The easiest way for a user (our analyzers) to use the project is to install it in a conda environment with DIRAC in it.

I am following the instructions from the README.md, i.e.:

mamba create --name my-dirac-env -c conda-forge dirac-grid
conda activate my-dirac-env

but I see:

(dirac) [acampove@thinkpad-t430 ~]$ dirac-proxy-info
No CFG file loaded, was that intentional?
Running without remote configuration
Missing mandatory local configuration option /DIRAC/Setup
There were errors when loading configuration

I think there might be something missing in the documentation. What should I do to get this to work?

Cheers.

[fstagni]

Hi, it's indeed a bit confusing documentation, as the README tells you how to install DIRAC (for development purposes) but not how to configure it (a DIRAC client has to connect to a DIRAC server installation...). What you are missing is to run the dirac-configure command.

More, I think you want the LHCb DIRAC installation, so at a minimum you should:

pip install LHCbDIRAC
dirac-configure

It should also be noted that the conda environment you created might not contain all the dependencies you need (just try...), and in that case you'd need diracos (follow instructions in https://dirac.readthedocs.io/en/latest/UserGuide/GettingStarted/InstallingClient/index.html)

[maxnoe]

For using dirac in conda, you also should set some environment variables in your environment.

This is how I get started with dirac in conda for CTADIRAC, should be the same for other plugins:

$ mamba create -n dirac python=3.11 dirac-grid
# activate, so we can use $CONDA_PREFIX
$ mamba activate dirac 
$ mamba env config vars set \
  PYTHONNOUSERSITE=1 \
  X509_CERT_DIR=${CONDA_PREFIX}/etc/grid-security/certificates \
  X509_VOMS_DIR=${CONDA_PREFIX}/etc/grid-security/vomsdir \
  X509_VOMSES=${CONDA_PREFIX}/etc/grid-security/vomses
# need to re-activate for env var settings to take affect:
$ mamba deactivate
$ mamba activate dirac
# install your DIRAC plugin and configure
$ pip install CTADIRAC
$ dirac-configure

[fstagni]

Just a detail: we certify DIRAC for python 3.11, not yet for 3.12 (or 3.13)