How we reduced conda's index fetch bandwidth by 99%
Image credit: Jason Leung on Unsplash
The new conda 23.3.1 release from March, 2023 includes an
--experimental=jlap
flag orexperimental: ["jlap"]
.condarc
setting that can reduce repdata.json fetch bandwidth by orders of magnitude. This is how we developed conda's new incremental repodata feature.
Conda is a cross-platform, language-agnostic binary package manager that includes a constraint solver to choose compatible sets of packages. Before conda can install a package, it downloads information about all available packages. This allows the solver to make global decisions about which packages to install. The time and bandwidth spent downloading this metadata can be significant, but we have improved this in conda 23.3.1. By enabling the experimental: ["jlap"]
feature in .condarc
, conda users can see more than a 99% reduction in index fetch bandwidth.