I am using a locked down system where I cannot install any applications including Anaconda or any other python.
Anybody knows if it is possible to access local files from a jupyter online solution? I know it would probably be slow as the file would have to be moved back and forth?
Thanks
Yes, you can use your local files from a Jupyter online solution doing what you say of moving them back and forth. (The remote server cannot connect to your local system itself beyond the browser sandbox, and so concerns like Chris mentions aren't an issue.)
I can demonstrate this easily:
Go to here and click on the launch binder badge you see.
A temporary session backed by MyBinder.org will spin up. Depending where you are in the world, you may be on a machine run by Jupyter folks via Google or another member of this service backed by folks in a Federation that believe this a valuable service to offer to empower Jupyter users.
After the session comes up, you'll be in JupyterLab interface. You'll see a file/directory navigation pane on the left side. You can click and drag a file on your local computer and drop it in that pane. You should see it show up on the remote directory.
You should be able to open and edit it. Depending on what it is or what you convert it to. You can even run it.
Of course you can make a new notebook on the remote session and save it. Then after saving it, download it back to your local machine by right-clicking on the icon for it in the file navigation pane and selecting 'Download'.
If you prefer to work in the classic Jupyter notebook interface, you can go to 'Help' and select 'Launch Classic Notebook' from the menu. The classic Jupyter Dashboard will come up. You will need to upload things to there using the upload button as drag and drop only works in JupyterLab. You can download back to your local computer from the dashboard or when you have a notebook open, you can use the file menu to download back to your local machine, too.
Make sure you save anything you make that is useful back to your machine as the sessions are temporary and will time out after 10 minutes of inactivity. They'll also disconnect after a few hours even if you are actively using them. There's a safety net built in that works if it does disconnect but you have to aware of it ahead of time. And it is best tested a few times in advance when you don't need it. See Getting your notebook after your Binder has stopped.
As this is going to a remote machine, obviously there are security concerns. Part of this is addressed by the temporary nature of the sessions. Nothing is stored remotely once the active session goes away. (Hence, the paragraph above because once it is gone, it is gone.) However, don't upload anything you wouldn't want someone else to see. Don't share keys and things with this system. In fact, it is possible now to do real time co-authoring/co-editing of Jupyter notebooks via the MyBinder system although some of the minor glitches are still being worked out.
A lot of packages you can install right in the session using %pip install or %conda install in cells right in the notebook. However, sometimes you want them already installed so the session is ready with the necessary software. (Plus some software won't work unless installed during the building backing image of the container backing the session.) That is where it becomes handy that you can customize the session that comes up via configuration files in public repositories. A list of places you can host those files is seen by going to MyBinder.org and pressing the dropdown menu in the top left side of that form there, under 'GitHub repository name or URL'. Here's an example. You can look in requirements.txt and see I install quite a few packages in the data science stack.
Of course there's other related online offerings for Jupyter (or you can install it on remote servers) and many use authentication. As some of those cost money and you are unsure about your locked system, the MyBinder.org system may help you test the limits of what you can do on your machine.
