[Chimera-users] Need help- Why there is network connection

[Eric Pettersen]

Hi Siddhartha,
	When Chimera starts up, it may contact www.cgl.ucsf.edu <http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/> to determine if a newer version of Chimera is available and alert the user if there is one.  The frequency of checking (including never) is controlled by the "Update check interval" preference setting (Favorites→Preferences).
	There is no setting in Chimera to disable all outbound network connections, and doing so would significantly reduce Chimera's usefulness.  It would not be able to fetch data from publicly available databases such as the PDB and UniProt, be able to convert SMILES strings to structures, and many other things.
	There are some "cloud services" (really web services) run on CGL's own servers that some Chimera tools are built on and that involve exporting user data and importing results.  They are: comparative modeling with MODELLER, BLASTing sequences, and realigning sequences with Clustal Omega or MUSCLE.  It is possible to install local versions of all these programs and have Chimera use the locally installed version instead of the web service.  As far as SMILES strings could be considered "user data", the strings are sent to external servers to convert into 3D structures.  There may be other less-used external services I'm forgetting (Chimera is a big program and I basing this off my memory).

--Eric

	Eric Pettersen
	UCSF Computer Graphics Lab


> On Apr 12, 2021, at 12:56 AM, Siddhartha Pradhan (Contractor) <siddhartha.pradhan1 at gilead.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
>  
> Before we install any  software in our system within Gilead organization, we do the software security assessment. During our assessment for " UCSF Chimera v1.15", we found below external network connection is being made.
>  
> Connection to 169.230.27.29 on tcp/80 (www.cgl.ucsf.edu <http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/>)
>  
> •             Why the network connection is being made and what is the reason behind it?
> •             Is there any sorts of data transfer is being happened from the user system?
> •             Is there any settings in the application to disable the network connections?
> •             If users can use the software to export/import data. Is there any cloud service associated with this?
>  
> It would be of great help if you can kindly give a clarity for the above network connection ASAP.
>  
> Regards,
> Siddhartha
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