pip install mysql-python fails with EnvironmentErr

Question

This is the error I get

(mysite)zjm1126@zjm1126-G41MT-S2:~/zjm_test/mysite$ pip install mysql-python
Downloading/unpacking mysql-python
  Downloading MySQL-python-1.2.3.tar.gz (70Kb): 70Kb downloaded
  Running setup.py egg_info for package mysql-python
    sh: mysql_config: not found
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 14, in <module>
      File "/home/zjm1126/zjm_test/mysite/build/mysql-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>
        metadata, options = get_config()
      File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config
        libs = mysql_config("libs_r")
      File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config
        raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))
    EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    sh: mysql_config: not found

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<string>", line 14, in <module>

  File "/home/zjm1126/zjm_test/mysite/build/mysql-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>

    metadata, options = get_config()

  File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config

    libs = mysql_config("libs_r")

  File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config

    raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))

EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found

----------------------------------------
Command python setup.py egg_info failed with error code 1
Storing complete log in /home/zjm1126/.pip/pip.log
(mysite)zjm1126@zjm1126-G41MT-S2:~/zjm_test/mysite$ pip install mysql-python
Downloading/unpacking mysql-python
  Running setup.py egg_info for package mysql-python
    sh: mysql_config: not found
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 14, in <module>
      File "/home/zjm1126/zjm_test/mysite/build/mysql-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>
        metadata, options = get_config()
      File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config
        libs = mysql_config("libs_r")
      File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config
        raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))
    EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    sh: mysql_config: not found

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<string>", line 14, in <module>

  File "/home/zjm1126/zjm_test/mysite/build/mysql-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>

    metadata, options = get_config()

  File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config

    libs = mysql_config("libs_r")

  File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config

    raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))

EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found

----------------------------------------
Command python setup.py egg_info failed with error code 1
Storing complete log in /home/zjm1126/.pip/pip.log

What can I do to resolve this?

Answer 1

I was trying to install mysql-python on an Amazon EC2 Linux instance and I had to install these :

yum install mysql mysql-devel mysql-common mysql-libs gcc

But then I got this error :

_mysql.c:29:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory

So I installed :

yum install python-devel

And that did the trick.

Answer 2

apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev python-dev

Seemed to do the trick.

Answer 3

There maybe various answers for the above issue, below is a aggregated solution.

For Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install python-dev
$ sudo apt install python-MySQLdb

For CentOS:

$ yum install python-devel mysql-devel

Answer 4

sometimes the error depends on the actual cause. we had a case where mysql-python was installed through the python-mysqldb debian package.

a developer who didn't know this, accidentally ran pip uninstall mysql-python and then failed to recover with pip install mysql-python giving the above error.

pip uninstall mysql-python had destroyed the debian package contents, and of course pip install mysql-python failed because the debian package didn't need any dev files.

the correct solution in that case was apt-get install --reinstall python-mysqldb which restored mysql-python to its original state.

Answer 5

For anyone that is using MariaDB instead of MySQL, the solution is to install the libmariadbclient-dev package and create a symbolic link to the config file with the correct name.

For example this worked for me:

ln -s /usr/bin/mariadb_config /usr/bin/mysql_config

Answer 6

Your sudo path does not know about your local path... go into superuser mode, add the path, and install it from there.

sudo su
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin/
pip install mysql-python
exit

And you're up and running on OSX. Now you have an updated global python.