sudo: pip: command not found in CentOS

Question

I use CentOS and I installed pip to /usr/local/python-dir/bin/pip. I made a link to /usr/local/bin/pip. Then I executed sudo pip install xxx, it reported an error like this:

sudo: pip: command not found 

I see $PATH is all right:

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin 

However, I can only execute pip this way:

sudo /usr/local/bin/pip install xxx 

How can I configure PATH or something else? Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

For security reasons, sudo does not rely on the $PATH set in your environment. There is a secure_path option in /etc/sudoers that specifies the PATH that sudo will use for locating binaries. For example:

Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin 

Just add /usr/local/bin to this PATH, or get used to typing:

sudo `which pip` install xxx 

Answer 2

Not ideal but works. You can always unlink it after the install to restore security.

sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/pip /bin/pip 

Puts pip in the root path bin. You can then run pip as sudo.