--system-site-packages fails if PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=true

[carolyn-idi]

Based on some online docs I set up pip so it only runs for an activated virtual environment by setting PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV to true.

I have some packages installed on the system level that I'd like to install by default for some of my projects. My understanding is that I need to use the --system-site-packages flag to get this to happen.

If PIP_REQUIRE_VIRUTALENV is set to false - everything works ok.
If it's set to true it fails with the following errors:

Running virtualenv with interpreter /usr/local/bin/python2.7
New python executable in .venv/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip...
  Complete output from command /Users/insomniac/Repo/site/.venv/bin/python -c "import sys, pip; sys...d\"] + sys.argv[1:]))" setuptools pip:
  Could not find an activated virtualenv (required).
----------------------------------------
...Installing setuptools, pip...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 2338, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 824, in main
    symlink=options.symlink)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 992, in create_environment
    install_wheel(to_install, py_executable, search_dirs)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 960, in install_wheel
    'PIP_NO_INDEX': '1'
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 902, in call_subprocess
    % (cmd_desc, proc.returncode))
OSError: Command /Users/insomniac/Repo/site/.venv/bin/python -c "import sys, pip; sys...d\"] + sys.argv[1:]))" setuptools pip failed with error code 3
Activating virtualenv "site"...
-bash: .venv/bin/activate: No such file or directory

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if there is another way that this should be done.

[pfmoore]

Sounds like a bug. Virtualenv runs pip, using the new virtualenv's python, but it doesn't activate the virtuialenv. Maybe we need to unset PEP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV when doing so.

I can't think of an obvious workaround apart from unsetting that variable temporarily when creating virtualenvs.

Maybe pip needs an --isolated mode to ignore user config files and environment variables (and virtualenv could then use that).

[Ivoz]

As alternatives,

A) you can provide -i mypackage (many times) to the mkvirtualenv command to automatically install packages after creating it;

B) virtualenvwrapper has a great deal of functionality for handling this sort of functionality. From a postmkvirtualenv file to issue commands, to project templates

Hope you might find those useful as well.

[carolyn-idi]

I really like the idea of temporarily turning PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV off for the process and then turn it back on (if it was on in the first place). That seems the easiest and it's what I can do manually for now. I'm not using virtualenvwrapper at the moment (although I will look into it).

[piotr-dobrogost]

Maybe pip needs an --isolated mode to ignore user config files and environment variables (and virtualenv could then use that).

Pip does have --isolated flag for some time now. Setting PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=1 and running virtualenv issue557 does not error with virtualenv 15.0.1. Probably this was fixed then.

[stale]

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