Install python packages for local user without sudo

Introduction

Sometimes we don't have the superuser competence on a server machine, but we need to install some packages in Python. How can we achieve this?

Download Python

Find the desired Python version in Python ftp site and download it to a local file.

[username@host filename]$ wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.5/Python-3.4.5.tgz
--2016-11-11 21:31:25--  https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.5/Python-3.4.5.tgz
Resolving www.python.org... 151.101.76.223, 2a04:4e42:12::223
Connecting to www.python.org|151.101.76.223|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 19611207 (19M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: “Python-3.4.5.tgz”
 
100%[======================================>] 19,611,207  13.1M/s   in 1.4s
 
2016-11-11 21:31:26 (13.1 MB/s) - “Python-3.4.5.tgz” saved [19611207/19611207]

Change the access permission of the execution file in Python to executable.

[username@host filename]$ tar zxfv Python-3.4.5.tgz
...
[username@host python]$ find ~/filename/python -type d | xargs chmod 0755
[username@host python]$ cd Python-3.4.5/

Install Python

Configure the installation directory.

[username@host Python-3.4.5]$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/filename/python
...
[username@host Python-3.4.5]$ make
...
[username@host Python-3.4.5]$ make install
...

Change bash run command file

Add the path of Python to the shell script that Bash runs whenever it is started interactively.

[username@host Python-3.4.5]$ vim ~/.bashrc

Concate the path of local Python in front of the path variable.

export PATH=$HOME/filename/python/Python-3.4.5/:$PATH

Reload the shell script.

[username@host Python-3.4.5]$ source ~/.bashrc

Install pip locally

Get the get-pip.py file from the web. And install pip for local user.

[username@host python]$ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
--2016-11-11 22:05:46--  https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
Resolving bootstrap.pypa.io... 151.101.76.175
Connecting to bootstrap.pypa.io|151.101.76.175|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1595408 (1.5M) [text/x-python]
Saving to: “get-pip.py”
 
100%[======================================>] 1,595,408   3.37M/s   in 0.5s
 
2016-11-11 22:05:47 (3.37 MB/s) - “get-pip.py” saved [1595408/1595408]
[username@host python]$ python get-pip.py --user
[username@host python]$ vim ~/.bashrc

Add the path of Python to the shell script that Bash runs whenever it is started interactively.
Concate the path of local Python in front of the path variable.

export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin/:$PATH

Reload the shell script.

[username@host python]$ source ~/.bashrc

Install packages without sudo

Now, the pip command can be used without sudo and the Python packages can be installed locally.

[username@host ~]$ pip install pandas
Collecting pandas
  Downloading pandas-0.19.1-cp34-cp34m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl (18.1MB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 18.1MB 66kB/s
Collecting numpy>=1.7.0 (from pandas)
  Downloading numpy-1.11.2-cp34-cp34m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl (15.6MB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 15.6MB 76kB/s
Collecting python-dateutil>=2 (from pandas)
  Downloading python_dateutil-2.6.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (194kB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 194kB 6.0MB/s
Collecting pytz>=2011k (from pandas)
  Downloading pytz-2016.7-py2.py3-none-any.whl (480kB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 481kB 2.7MB/s
Collecting six>=1.5 (from python-dateutil>=2->pandas)
  Downloading six-1.10.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: numpy, six, python-dateutil, pytz, pandas
Successfully installed numpy-1.11.2 pandas-0.19.1 python-dateutil-2.6.0 pytz-2016.7 six-1.10.0

Conclusion

After installation of local Python packages, now we can install any packages freely without influencing other users on the same machine.