pip install matplotlib error, error: /usr/local/man/man1/nosetests.1: Permission denied

Question

I just had the following error when trying to install matplotlib using homebrew:

...[tons of output, then:]

running install_data

copying nosetests.1 -> /usr/local/man/man1

error: /usr/local/man/man1/nosetests.1: Permission denied

----------------------------------------
Cleaning up...
Command /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/private/var/folders/ys/l1bnz3cx34z3h4mrkny947v40000gr/T/pip_build_schultzm/nose/setup.py';exec(compile(getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /var/folders/ys/l1bnz3cx34z3h4mrkny947v40000gr/T/pip-xWlPBu-record/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile failed with error code 1 in /private/var/folders/ys/l1bnz3cx34z3h4mrkny947v40000gr/T/pip_build_schultzm/nose
Storing debug log for failure in /Users/schultzm/.pip/pip.log

I've been searching for an answer, could not find one. However, I solved it (so posting it here for others) by doing:

sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/man/man1/

and then re-running the install (i.e., pip install matplotlib) and it ran fine.

Answer 1

sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/man/man1/

Then re-run the install (i.e., pip install matplotlib)

Explained: sudo allows admin privileges (allows 'super user' after entering an appropriate password), chmod allows the administrator to "change file mode", the '7' means (4[read] + 2[write] + 1[execute]), the first '7' means 'owner', the second '7' means 'group' and the third '7' means 'others'; so will allow admin privileges in order to make the change to the file mode to 'rwx' for owner, group and others. The final part of the command is the file(s) you would like to chmod.