How to install matplotlib on Elastic Beanstalk

Question

Because matplotlib needs numpy to already be installed, I have run into an issue.

To install other python packages on my Elastic Beanstalk environment, I use the pip requirements.txt file. Because the setup configuration automatically installs the packages in alphabetical order, matplotlib always is installed first which causes an error.

Has anyone had this problem and know of a way to successfully fix it?

Answer 1

I have been beating my head against the wall with this for several days but it seems that if you want to install matplotlib/scipy/scikit-learn using a requirements.txt file you need to do things one module at a time.

What I have been able to understand is that on Elastic Beanstalk packages are not installed in the site-packages directory of the virtual environment until it has successfully worked its way through the entire requirements.txt file.

So for example if you try to install numpy and scipy at the same time, as I was doing, it will fail because scipy cannot find certain numpy modules (numpy.distutils.core specifically). Numpy is sitting in /opt/python/run/venv/build waiting to go but pip is looking in /opt/python/run/venv/lib/python2.6/site-packages and doesn't find numpy.

You need to make one commit with only numpy in your requirements.txt file and push this up to Elastic Beanstalk. If this succeeds the numpy module will be in the right place and then you can make a second commit with requirements updated to scipy or matplotlib in your case.

Be careful with your configuration file in .ebextensions, you need to have all the dependencies listed. Specifically, at the top of .ebextensions/myapp.config you should have

packages:
  yum:
    gcc-c++: []
    gcc-gfortran: []
    python-devel: []
    atlas-sse3-devel: []
    lapack-devel: []
    libpng-devel: []
    freetype-devel: []
    zlib-devel: []

atlas-sse3-devel and lapack-devel are needed if you want scipy and libpng-devel, freetype-devel, and zlib-devel are needed for matplotlib.

The other alternative is to SSH to the ec2 instance associated with your app on Elastic Beanstalk, start up the virtual environment (source /opt/python/run/venv/bin/activate) and pip install the packages yourself.