python - How to avoid "Permission denied" when using pip with virtualenv

98
votes

I attempt to deploy a Python package with pip in a virtual environment on an Ubuntu machine, but encounter a permission-related issue. For example:

(TestVirtualEnv)test@testServer:~$ pip install markdown2

terminates by:

error: could not create '/home/test/virtualenvs/TestVirtualEnv/lib/python3.3/site-packages/markdown2.py': Permission denied

I can't sudo, since it will install the package globally, and not within the virtual environment. I chowned site-packages; ls shows only directories related to easy_install, pip and setuptools, and nothing related to Markdown.

How to deploy a package in a virtual environment with pip without encountering permission-related errors?

8
pythonvirtualenvpip
Just to clarify: did you create this virtualenv with sudo? – sebastian_oe
@sebastian_oe: I believe I did. I'll recreate one to be sure. – Arseni Mourzenko
Then this might be the problem. Try creating a virtualenv without sudo. – sebastian_oe
@sebastian_oe: I created a virtual environment without sudo. Indeed, the package installs correctly now. Please, can you promote your comment to an answer so I can accept it? – Arseni Mourzenko
Also if you are switching between different users, make sure you are using user that owns (or has write access) virtualenv directory, because you can activate virtualenv with other user, but it won't let you install any packages and will give permission access. – Andrius

8 Answers

114
votes

virtualenv permission problems might occur when you create the virtualenv as sudo and then operate without sudo in the virtualenv.

As found out in your question's comment, the solution here is to create the virtualenv without sudo to be able to work (esp. write) in it without sudo.

117
votes

Solution:

If you created the virtualenv as root, run the following command:

sudo chown -R your_username:your_username path/to/virtuaelenv/

This will probably fix your problem.

Cheers

6
votes

In my case, I was using mkvirtualenv, but didn't tell it I was going to be using python3. I got this error:

mkvirtualenv hug
pip3 install hug -U

....
error: could not create '/usr/lib/python3.4/site-packages': Permission denied

It worked after specifying python3:

mkvirtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3 hug
pip3 install hug -U
5
votes

I didn't create my virtualenv using sudo. So Sebastian's answer didn't apply to me. My project is called utils. I checked utils directory and saw this:

-rw-r--r--   1 macuser  staff   983  6 Jan 15:17 README.md
drwxr-xr-x   6 root     staff   204  6 Jan 14:36 utils.egg-info
-rw-r--r--   1 macuser  staff    31  6 Jan 15:09 requirements.txt

As you can see, utils.egg-info is owned by root not macuser. That is why it was giving me permission denied error. I also had to remove /Users/macuser/.virtualenvs/armoury/lib/python2.7/site-packages/utils.egg-link as it was created by root as well. I did pip install -e . again after removing those, and it worked.

5
votes

If you created virtual environment using root then use this command

sudo su

it will give you the root access and then activate your virtual environment using this

source /root/.env/ENV_NAME/bin/activate
1
votes

You did not activate the virtual environment before using pip.

Try it with: 

$(your venv path) . bin/activate

And then use pip -r requirements.txt on your main folder

1
votes

I've also had this happen (by accident) after creating a new venv while inside an existing virtual environment. an easy way to diagnose this would be to see where the python is symlinked to, i.e. run:

ls -l venv/bin/python

and make sure it points to the appropriate Python binary. For most systems this will be /usr/bin/python or /usr/bin/python3. while if it points to an existing virtual environment it'll be something like /home/youruser/somedir/bin/python. if it's the latter than I'd suggest recreating the venv while making sure that you aren't "inside" any existing virtualenv (i.e. run deactivate )

0
votes

While creating virtualenv if you use sudo the directory is created with root privileges.So when you try to install a package with non-sudo user you won't have permission to install into it. So always create virtualenv without sudo and install without sudo.

You can also copy packages installed on global python to virtualenv. 

cp -r /lib/python/site-packages/* virtualenv/lib/python/site-packages/