Upgrade pip in Amazon Linux

Question

I wanted to deploy my Python app on Amazon Linux AMI 2015.09.1, which has Python2.7 (default) and pip (6.1.1). Then, I upgraded the pip using the command:

sudo pip install -U pip 

However, it seemed broken, and showed the message when I tried to install packages:

pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: pip==6.1.1 

I found out that pip remove the previous files located in /usr/bin/, and installed the new one in /usr/local/bin. Thus, I tried to specify the location by using the command:

sudo pip install -U --install-option="--prefix='/usr/bin'" pip 

Nevertheless, it still installed the new one in /usr/local/bin. In addition to that, pip could not work well with sudo although it successfully installed. The error message :

sudo: pip2.7: command not found 

Is there a way to properly manage pip?

Answer 1

Try:

sudo which pip 

This may reveal something like 'no pip in ($PATH)'.

If that is the case, you can then do:

which pip 

Which will give you a path like /usr/local/bin/pip.

Copy + paste the path to pip to the sbin folder by running: sudo cp /usr/local/bin/pip /usr/sbin/

This will allow you to run sudo pip without any errors.

Answer 2

Struggled with this for a while. Here's what I've found:

• ec2_user finds the pip executable, but has a module import error due to other having no read/execute permissions on the pip folders in the /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages folder. This is actually okay, since in most cases, pip installs fail when not run as root anyway.
• sudo cannot find pip.
• Entering root with sudo su - allows pip to be run without issue.

The reason sudo pip stops working after the upgrade, is because the executable (or symbolic link) is removed from /usr/bin. However, what remains is a file called pip-27, which contains the following:

#!/usr/bin/python2.7 # EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'pip==6.1.1','console_scripts','pip2.7' __requires__ = 'pip==6.1.1' import sys from pkg_resources import load_entry_point  if __name__ == '__main__':     sys.exit(         load_entry_point('pip==6.1.1', 'console_scripts', 'pip2.7')()     ) 

So, that's where our error comes from, as the upgrade clearly doesn't clean this file up. Not entirely clear on where the name translation from pip to pip-2.7 occurs.

As mentioned in another answer, pip now exists in /usr/local/bin after the upgrade, which is no longer in the sudo secure path. You can add this path to the secure_path variable by running sudo visudo. Another alternative, if you'd prefer to not add that path to your secure_path is to make a symbolic link to the new pip executable in /usr/bin.