Installing a package in Python virtualenv still causes it to be installed globally

Question

I installed virtualenv and created a virtual environment called ENV1.

Then I activated the environment by running 'source bin/activate'. I am sure the virtual environment is activated because the command prompt has changed, reflecting the new environment.

Then from that command prompt, I ran 'pip install lpthw.web'. I would have thought this package will get installed somewhere in the ENV1 directory, but instead it got installed in /usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/

Is this the correct behavior? Could someone please point out if I am doing something wrong.

Answer 1

Check which pip you are actually running (which pip), also try running pip -E path-to-your-env install ....