Howto modify/affect/adapt conan dependencies - conan

Question

I am not a conan expert, so maybe there is an obvious solution for this. But it can't be trivial since I am struggling with this for a while and can't find a solution.
We need parquet for our project, we include this via the conan arrow package like this, conanfile.txt:
[requires]
arrow/2.0.0
[generators]
cmake
[options]
spdlog:=gcc
arrow:shared=False
arrow:parquet=True
arrow:fPIC=False
arrow:with_re2=False
arrow:with_protobuf=False
arrow:with_openssl=False
arrow:with_gflags=False
arrow:with_glog=False
arrow:with_grpc=False
arrow:with_utf8proc=False
arrow:with_zstd=False
arrow:with_bz2=False
(I remove all the other packages, but there are not so many of them)
The problem is on our CI we get the error:
...
Downloading conanmanifest.txt
Downloading conanfile.py
Downloading conan_export.tgz
thrift/0.13.0: Downloaded recipe revision 0
openssl/1.1.1j: Not found in local cache, looking in remotes...
openssl/1.1.1j: Trying with 'conan-center'...
Downloading conanmanifest.txt
Downloading conanfile.py
Downloading conan_export.tgz
openssl/1.1.1j: Downloaded recipe revision 0
ERROR: openssl/1.1.1j: Cannot load recipe.
Error loading conanfile at '/conan/.conan/data/openssl/1.1.1j/_/_/export/conanfile.py': Current Conan version (1.32.1) does not satisfy the defined one (>=1.33.0).
CMake Error at cmake/conan.cmake:368 (message):
Conan install failed='1'
Call Stack (most recent call first):
cmake/conan.cmake:448 (conan_cmake_install)
CMakeLists.txt:137 (conan_cmake_run)
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "/builds/0/corsika/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log".
indicating correctly that on CI we use containers with conan 1.32.1 and this seems to be in conflict with openssl/1.1.1j that wants >= 1.33.0.
I find that annoying because we explicitly don't want and don't need openssl and we switch it off for arrow (see above).
When I run conan info . I can see that:
conanfile.txt
ID: 33d8c2433f5e03548c5229121dbd4f82e354000d
BuildID: None
Requires:
arrow/2.0.0
arrow/2.0.0
ID: cd50fd05198137f0420bf6da1e5029dade26bc93
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: https://arrow.apache.org/
License: Apache-2.0
Description: Apache Arrow is a cross-language development platform for in-memory data
Topics: conan, arrow, memory
Provides: arrow
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Missing
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2020-11-22 17:53:36 UTC
Required by:
conanfile.txt
Requires:
thrift/0.13.0
boost/1.75.0
ID: d9d3e501899335bccbe5205508f9a4801424ce7d
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: https://www.boost.org
License: BSL-1.0
Description: Boost provides free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries
Topics: conan, boost, libraries, cpp
Provides: boost
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Download
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2021-04-13 19:51:36 UTC
Required by:
thrift/0.13.0
Requires:
zlib/1.2.11
bzip2/1.0.8
libiconv/1.16
bzip2/1.0.8
ID: da606cf731e334010b0bf6e85a2a6f891b9f36b0
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: http://www.bzip.org
License: bzip2-1.0.8
Description: bzip2 is a free and open-source file compression program that uses the Burrows Wheeler algorithm.
Topics: conan, bzip2, data-compressor, file-compression
Provides: bzip2
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Cache
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2020-09-04 10:44:14 UTC
Required by:
boost/1.75.0
libevent/2.1.12
ID: 6b0981c427aa0eb8bea05add2094df29ed639799
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: https://github.com/libevent/libevent
License: BSD-3-Clause
Description: libevent - an event notification library
Topics: conan, libevent, event
Provides: libevent
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Cache
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2021-03-18 17:32:39 UTC
Required by:
thrift/0.13.0
Requires:
openssl/1.1.1j
libiconv/1.16
ID: 6af9cc7cb931c5ad942174fd7838eb655717c709
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: https://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/
License: LGPL-2.1
Description: Convert text to and from Unicode
Topics: libiconv, iconv, text, encoding, locale, unicode, conversion
Provides: libiconv
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Cache
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2020-10-04 02:46:44 UTC
Required by:
boost/1.75.0
openssl/1.1.1j
ID: 6af9cc7cb931c5ad942174fd7838eb655717c709
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: https://github.com/openssl/openssl
License: OpenSSL
Description: A toolkit for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols
Topics: conan, openssl, ssl, tls, encryption, security
Provides: openssl
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Cache
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2021-03-26 21:05:40 UTC
Required by:
thrift/0.13.0
libevent/2.1.12
thrift/0.13.0
ID: 44b3a17b9712eb98c7cab65c26ec70335992ff20
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: https://github.com/apache/thrift
License: Apache-2.0
Description: Thrift is an associated code generation mechanism for RPC
Topics: conan, thrift, serialization, rpc
Provides: thrift
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Download
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2021-03-30 05:58:58 UTC
Required by:
arrow/2.0.0
Requires:
boost/1.75.0
openssl/1.1.1j
zlib/1.2.11
libevent/2.1.12
zlib/1.2.11
ID: 6af9cc7cb931c5ad942174fd7838eb655717c709
BuildID: None
Remote: conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com
URL: https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index
Homepage: https://zlib.net
License: Zlib
Description: A Massively Spiffy Yet Delicately Unobtrusive Compression Library (Also Free, Not to Mention Unencumbered by Patents)
Topics: conan, zlib, compression
Provides: zlib
Recipe: Cache
Binary: Cache
Binary remote: conan-center
Creation date: 2020-11-15 04:53:34 UTC
Required by:
thrift/0.13.0
boost/1.75.0
and it seem the reason openssl is pulled in is because of thrift and libevent.
So what are solution here given the fact that we cannot change our CI containers because then we basically drop support to platforms that we need to support?
why openssl depends on conan version in the first place? Can't this we fixed or worked around?
can we affect the dependency tree of arrow in a way to avoid any reference to openssl? E.g. provide dedicated versions of thrift/libevent that come without openssl (if this is even possible)?
Are there any other options?
(As a footnote, the containers and systems we use are all not terribly outdated so I believe this problem can easily affect many users. I have not found any solution after search for a while. )

Answer 1

The obvious recommendation: Update Conan to the latest version (1.35.1).
pip install -U conan
Packages in Conan Center Index (all official) are not blocked by any old version, actually it's mandatory testing them with latest Conan version available. Conan Center Index assumes you are running latest Conan client version too:
https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index/blob/41d4fbb8c218f9d938ccb8b9d888bff52002e62e/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md#L9
https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index/blob/c060f7086f3745361795fb6379bd6f0bac000bab/docs/how_to_add_packages.md#L57
why openssl depends on conan version in the first place? Can't this we fixed or worked around?
New Conan features are introduces for every new release. You can't simply change a recipe because you are consuming them. Even if you download the recipe and remove that check, it will fail, because your Conan client version doesn't support some method/feature in that recipe.
can we affect the dependency tree of arrow in a way to avoid any reference to openssl? E.g. provide dedicated versions of thrift/libevent that come without openssl (if this is even possible)?
Yes, but is not recommended. You can declare other package versions consumed by arrow in your conanfile.txt, it will force Conan to use your versions.
Are there any other options?
Yes, don't try workarounds, do the right thing, update your client version.