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Conda/Bioconda

Description

You can create your own personal conda environment using Anaconda which installs conda and bioconda packages.

You can install software that supports conda/bioconda installation inside the conda environment you create.

Once you create a conda environment, you can continue to install other packages into that environment.

You can create more than one environment in case you need specific versions of tools.

Initialization

Before you begin, you will need to contact the HPRC helpdesk (help@hprc.tamu.edu) to request a $SCRATCH file quota increase because creating a conda environment will add thousands of files to your $SCRATCH space.

After you get your file quota increase, the next thing you need to do is to add a few conda channels which contain certain bioinformatics tools.

You only need to do this step once in order to add the conda-forge and bioconda channels:

module purge
module load Anaconda3/2022.05
conda config --add channels defaults
conda config --add channels conda-forge
conda config --add channels bioconda
conda config --set auto_activate_base False

Create a new conda environment

Anaconda

To to create an Anaconda conda environment called bio, do the following on the command line (use the latest versio of Anaconda3:

module purge
module load Anaconda3/2022.05
conda create -n bio

After your bio environment is created, you will see output on how to activate and use your bio environment

#
# To activate this environment, use:
# > source activate bio
#
# To deactivate an active environment, use:
# > source deactivate
#

Then you can add packages to your bio environment

source activate bio
conda install -c bioconda bwa

Miniconda

Description

You can create your own personal conda environment using miniconda which you can use to install conda and bioconda packages.

You can install software that supports conda/bioconda installation inside the conda environment you create.

Once you create a conda environment, you can continue to install other packages into that environment.

You can create more than one environment in case you need specific versions of tools.

Relocate the default install directory

By default, miniconda will save environments in your $HOME/.conda directory but since space is limited in your $HOME directory, you will either need to move your $HOME/.conda directory to $SCRATCH or specify the full path of your miniconda environment.

cd
mv .conda $SCRATCH
ln -s $SCRATCH/.conda

Create a new conda environment

Once you have moved your .conda directory to $SCRATCH, you can create a new environment.

module purge
module load Miniconda3/4.7.10
conda create -n my_miniconda_env

You will see a message similar to the following, even though the location shows /home, the symlink created in the previous step will be saving the environment in $SCRATCH/.conda

Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): done         
Solving environment: done

## Package Plan ##

  environment location: /home/your_netid/.conda/envs/my_miniconda_env


Proceed ([y]/n)?

Hit enter which accepts the default yes indicated by [y] then you will see the following

Preparing transaction: done
Verifying transaction: done
Executing transaction: done
#
# To activate this environment, use
#
#     $ conda activate my_miniconda_env
#
# To deactivate an active environment, use
#
#     $ conda deactivate

Type 'conda activate my_miniconda_env' to activate the environment and then install packages specifying versions if needed If you see a message like the following:

CommandNotFoundError: Your shell has not been properly configured to use 'conda activate'.

then use 'source activate my_miniconda_env' instead of conda activate.

source activate my_miniconda_env
conda install matplotlib numpy

After installing packages, type the following to exit the environment

conda deactivate

See available environments and installed packages

To see available miniconda environments (you don't need to activate an environment to see available environments):

module load Miniconda3/4.7.10
conda env list

To see what packages and versions are installed in an environment (after activating an environment):

module load Miniconda3/4.7.10
source activate my_miniconda_env
conda list

Installing specific package versions

You can specify the package version when installing packages including the Python version, either at the time of creation for the python version:

conda create -n my_miniconda_env python=3.8.2

or after sourcing an already created environment for other packages:

conda install matplotlib=3.2.1

Install conda/bioconda packages into an existing environment

If you want to install packages such as fastq-multx and bwa into your bio environment (notice the (bio) indicating you are within the bio environment):

[net_id@ada7 any_directory]$module purge
[net_id@ada7 any_directory]$module load Anaconda3/2022.05
[net_id@ada7 any_directory]$source activate bio
(bio) [net_id@ada7 any_directory]$conda install fastq-multx bwa

Debug Failed Installation

Although Anaconda is configured to install in the user's $SCRATCH/.conda directory, some anaconda packages may utilize the $HOME/.local directory during installation which could cause you to reach your file quota for your $HOME directory. To resolve this issue, move your ~/.local directory to your $SCRATCH directory and create a symbolic link in your home directory to the .local scratch directory:

cd
mv .local $SCRATCH
ln -s $SCRATCH/.local

Using your conda Environment

To use your bio environment in a job script, you must first activate the bio environment and then run tool commands (fastq-multx in this example). Here is a sample job script (excluding the #SBATCH headers)

module load Anaconda3/2022.05
source activate bio
fastq-multx -l barcodes.grp seq2.fastq.gz seq1.fastq.gz -o n/a -o out%.fq
source deactivate
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