python - How to force virtualenv to install latest setuptools and pip from pypi?

Question

Is it possible to force virtualenv to use the latest setuptools and pip available from pypi? Essentially, I'm looking for the opposite of the --never-download flag.

Currently, when I make a new virtualenv, it uses the local (old) versions that come bundled with virtualenv.

$ v.mk testvenv
New python executable in testvenv/bin/python
Installing setuptools............done.
Installing pip...............done.
$ pip show setuptools
---
Name: setuptools
Version: 0.6c11
Location: /Users/cwilson/.virtualenvs/testvenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
Requires: 
$ pip search setuptools
[...]
setuptools                - Easily download, build, install, upgrade, and
                            uninstall Python packages
INSTALLED: 0.6c11
LATEST:    0.7.2
[...]

Answer 1

It's not supported for security reasons.

Using virtualenv.py as an isolated script (i.e. without an associated virtualenv_support directory) is no longer supported for security reasons and will fail with an error. Along with this, --never-download is now always pinned to True, and is only being maintained in the short term for backward compatibility (Pull #412).

I can't use the --extra-search-dir option either because it's currently broken https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/327

Looks like the only option is to simply wait for the virtualenv maintainers to update the bundled packages?