python - permission denied pip virtualenv

Question

I have been trying to set up virtualenv for use with django, but I keep having issues installing virtualenv with pip.

jeff@jeff-HP-MacBook-Android:~/repos$ pip install virtualenv
Collecting virtualenv
  Using cached virtualenv-13.1.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: virtualenv
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/jeff/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 211, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/home/jeff/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/commands/install.py", line 311, in run
    root=options.root_path,
  File "/home/jeff/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_set.py", line 646, in install
    **kwargs
  File "/home/jeff/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_install.py", line 803, in install
    self.move_wheel_files(self.source_dir, root=root)
  File "/home/jeff/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_install.py", line 998, in move_wheel_files
    isolated=self.isolated,
  File "/home/jeff/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/wheel.py", line 339, in move_wheel_files
    clobber(source, lib_dir, True)
  File "/home/jeff/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/wheel.py", line 317, in clobber
    shutil.copyfile(srcfile, destfile)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 83, in copyfile
    with open(dst, 'wb') as fdst:
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py'
jeff@jeff-HP-MacBook-Android:~/repos$ 

The closest answer I can find regards permissions inside the virtualenv: How to avoid "Permission denied" when using pip with virtualenv

But from what I can tell my issue is that there's something wrong with my install of pip, since I apparently don't even have virtualenv yet.

Answer 1

I don't think there's anything wrong with your pip installation. virtualenv is itself a Python module, and by default it goes in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages, a folder for which your user does not have write permissions. If you have sudo access, it would be easiest to simply try:

sudo pip install virtualenv

Once you've done that, you should be able to create virtualenvs without needing to use sudo. Alternately, there are instructions here for making your own virtual environment, but it looks like you will likely need to do some manual editing of the script it directs you to download.