Install and use pip in a local directory without root/sudo access.

pip.md

Install and use pip in a local directory without root/sudo access.

By: @saurabhshri

Why?

Many users when are given server access, do not have root (or sudo) privileges and can not simply do sudo apt-get install python-pip . Here's an easy way you can install and use pip without root (or sudo) access in a local directory. Note : This works without easy_install too.

How?

1. Download pip from an online repository : wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
2. Install the downloaded package into a local directory : python get-pip.py --user This will install pip to your local directory (.local/bin).
3. Now you may navigate to this directory (cd .local/bin) and then use pip or better set your $PATH variable this directory to use pip anywhere : PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin followed by source ~/.bashrc to apply the changes.

And that's it. You may now install all python modules you require via pip in a local directory without root.

Gist of Gist

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py && python get-pip.py --user
cd .local/bin
./pip install <package_name> --user

This came up as the first hit on Google for installing python packages as user but it's unfortunately mis-leading

This does not install in a local directory, it installs an OS specific user folder which is global for that user. It doesn't install in .local/bin in the current folder. It installs in ~/.local/bin (in your case). In my case it installs in ~/Library/Python/2.7/bin.

In either case that's not "my local directory" it's a effectively my "home directory" which is sadly not what I was looking for since I have various projects that need incompatible packages so needed actual solution for "local directory"

@greggman you can, probably even should, be using virtualenv. You create one env per project, and then install packages to that env. --local will, AFAIK, still work too.

pip install virtualenv --user
cd project1_folder
source bin/activate
virtualenv project1
pip install db=1.0.0 --user

cd ../project2_folder
virtualenv project2
source bin/activate
pip install db=2.0.0 --user

Fixed the formatting for you

Install and use pip in a local directory without root/sudo access.

By: @saurabhshri

Why?

Many users when are given server access, do not have root (or sudo) privileges and can not simply do sudo apt-get install python-pip . Here's an easy way you can install and use pip without root (or sudo) access in a local directory. Note : This works without easy_install too.

How?

Download pip from an online repository : wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
Install the downloaded package into a local directory : python get-pip.py --user This will install pip to your local directory (.local/bin).
Now you may navigate to this directory (cd .local/bin) and then use pip or better set your $PATH variable this directory to use pip anywhere : PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin followed by source ~/.bashrc to apply the changes.
And that's it. You may now install all python modules you require via pip in a local directory without root.

Gist of Gist

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py && python get-pip.py --user
cd .local/bin
./pip install <package_name> --user

@emteeoh @greggman
These days, you should probably be using pipenv instead of managing your virtualenv and your dependencies manually.

@emteeoh @greggman
These days, you should probably be using pipenv instead of managing your virtualenv and your dependencies manually.

In March of 2018, I tried to use pipenv and ran into many issues with locking. I decided to come back to it later, after a few more releases. It worked great on my local and servers I was the admin for, but where I was just the user it struggled where virtualenv did not. @Moritz90, have you continued to have success in various environments with pipenv?

I have zero recollection of when I wrote this gist, I just found it back while searching how to do it myself. Sadly Github doesn't notify about gist comments, so I missed the activity here.

@kenichi-shibata Thank you for fixing, I have updated formatting in the gist.

@greggman I have been using virtual environments to manage that too, as suggested by others.

I am trying to local install through pip using the following command:

# while positioned at the repository's root
pip3 install -e installator

and getting the following error:

installator should either be a path to a local project or a VCS url beginning with svn+, git+, hg+, or bzr+

can you kindly help me with this?

I have zero recollection of when I wrote this gist, I just found it back while searching how to do it myself. Sadly Github doesn't notify about gist comments, so I missed the activity here.

@kenichi-shibata Thank you for fixing, I have updated formatting in the gist.

@greggman I have been using virtual environments to manage that too, as suggested by others.

Can you please share your solution? Thanks!

I'm getting an error when i run wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
ERROR: no certificate subject alternative name matches requested host name ‘bootstrap.pypa.io’.
To connect to bootstrap.pypa.io insecurely, use `--no-check-certificate'.

So I changed it to wget --no-check-certificate https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py. It worked.

But then python get-pip.py --user again gave error.

I'm unable to resolve this issue.

what do we do if it says there is no file found in directory?