pip installing in global site-packages instead of

Question

Using pip to install a package in a virtualenv causes the package to be installed in the global site-packages folder instead of the one in the virtualenv folder. Here's how I set up Python3 and virtualenv on OS X Mavericks (10.9.1):

I installed python3 using Homebrew:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)"
brew install python3 --with-brewed-openssl

Changed the $PATH variable in .bash_profile; added the following line:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Running which python3 returns /usr/local/bin/python3 (after restarting the shell).

Note: which python3 still returns /usr/bin/python though.

Installed virtualenv using pip3:

pip3 install virtualenv

Next, create a new virtualenv and activate it:

virtualenv testpy3 -p python3
cd testpy3
source bin/activate

Note: if I don't specify -p python3, pip will be missing from the bin folder in the virtualenv.

Running which pip and which pip3 both return the virtualenv folder:

/Users/kristof/VirtualEnvs/testpy3/bin/pip3

Now, when I try to install e.g. Markdown using pip in the activated virtualenv, pip will install in the global site-packages folder instead of the site-packages folder of the virtualenv.

pip install markdown

Running pip list returns:

Markdown (2.3.1)
pip (1.4.1)
setuptools (2.0.1)
virtualenv (1.11)

Contents of /Users/kristof/VirtualEnvs/testpy3/lib/python3.3/site-packages:

__pycache__/
_markerlib/
easy_install.py
pip/
pip-1.5.dist-info/
pkg_resources.py
setuptools/
setuptools-2.0.2.dist-info/

Contents of /usr/local/lib/python3.3/site-packages:

Markdown-2.3.1-py3.3.egg-info/
__pycache__/
easy-install.pth
markdown/
pip-1.4.1-py3.3.egg/
setuptools-2.0.1-py3.3.egg
setuptools.pth
virtualenv-1.11-py3.3.egg-info/
virtualenv.py
virtualenv_support/

As you can see, the global site-packages folder contains Markdown, the virtualenv folder doesn't.

Note: I had Python2 and Python3 installed before on a different VM (followed these instructions) and had the same issue with Python3; installing packages in a Python2 based virtualenv worked flawlessly though.

Any tips, hints, … would be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

Had this issue after installing Divio: it had changed my PATH or environment in some way, as it launches a terminal.

The solution in this case was just to do source ~/.bash_profile which should already be setup to get you back to your original pyenv/pyenv-virtualenv state.

Answer 2

This problem occurs when create a virtualenv instance and then change the parent folder name.

Answer 3

Here are some practices that could avoid headaches when using Virtual Environments:

• Create a folder for your projects.
• Create your Virtualenv projects inside of this folder.
• After activating the environment of your project, never use "sudo pip install package".
• After finishing your work, always "deactivate" your environment.
• Avoid renaming your project folder.

---

For a better representation of this practices, here is a simulation:

creating a folder for your projects/environments

$ mkdir venv

creating environment

$ cd venv/ 

$ virtualenv google_drive
New python executable in google_drive/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip...done.

activating environment

$ source google_drive/bin/activate

installing packages

(google_drive) $ pip install PyDrive
Downloading/unpacking PyDrive
Downloading PyDrive-1.3.1-py2-none-any.whl
...
...
...    
Successfully installed PyDrive PyYAML google-api-python-client oauth2client six uritemplate httplib2 pyasn1 rsa pyasn1-modules
Cleaning up...

package available inside the environment

(google_drive) $ python
Python 2.7.6 (default, Oct 26 2016, 20:30:19) 
[GCC 4.8.4] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
>>> import pydrive.auth
>>>  
>>> gdrive = pydrive.auth.GoogleAuth()
>>>

deactivate environment

(google_drive) $ deactivate 

$ 

package NOT AVAILABLE outside the environment

(google_drive) $ python
Python 2.7.6 (default, Oct 26 2016, 20:32:10) 
[GCC 4.8.4] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
>>> import pydrive.auth
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named pydrive.auth
>>> 

---

Notes:

Why not sudo?

Virtualenv creates a whole new environment for you, defining $PATH and some other variables and settings. When you use sudo pip install package, you are running Virtualenv as root, escaping the whole environment which was created, and then, installing the package on global site-packages, and not inside the project folder where you have a Virtual Environment, although you have activated the environment.

If you rename the folder of your project (as mentioned in the accepted answer)...

...you'll have to adjust some variables from some files inside the bin directory of your project.

For example:

bin/pip, line 1 (She Bang)

bin/activate, line 42 (VIRTUAL_ENV)

Answer 4

This happened to me when I created the virtualenv in the wrong location. I then thought I could move the dir to another location without it mattering. It mattered.

mkdir ~/projects
virtualenv myenv
cd myenv
git clone [my repository]

Oh crap, I forgot to cd into projects before creating the virtualenv and cloning the rep. Oh well, I'm too lazy to destroy and recreate. I'll just move the dir with no issues.

cd ~
mv myenv projects
cd projects/myenv/myrepo
pip install -r requirements

Nope, wants more permissions, what the? I thought it was strange but SUDO AWAY! It then installed the packages into a global location.

The lesson I learned was, just delete the virtualenv dir. Don't move it.

Answer 5

Go to bin directory in your virtual environment and write like this:

./pip3 install <package-name>

Answer 6

I hit into the same issue while installing a python package from within a virtualenv. The root cause in my case was different. From within the virtualenv, I was (out of habit on Ubuntu), doing:

sudo easy_install -Z <package>

This caused the bin/pip shebang to be ignored and it used the root's non virtualenv python to install it in the global site-packages. Since we have a virtual environment, we should install the package without "sudo"