Upgrading setuptools on OSX El Capitan

Question

I'm trying to upgrade setuptools. Well actually I'm trying to upgrade ansible but it's trying to upgrade setuptools and failing. Trying to do it myself also fails. Even trying to uninstall it fails

$ sudo -H pip install --upgrade setuptools Collecting setuptools   Using cached setuptools-18.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl Installing collected packages: setuptools   Found existing installation: setuptools 1.1.6     Uninstalling setuptools-1.1.6: Exception: Traceback (most recent call last):   File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 211, in main     status = self.run(options, args)   File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 311, in run     root=options.root_path,   File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_set.py", line 640, in install     requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)   File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_install.py", line 716, in uninstall     paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)   File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_uninstall.py", line 125, in remove     renames(path, new_path)   File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/utils/__init__.py", line 315, in renames     shutil.move(old, new)   File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 299, in move     copytree(src, real_dst, symlinks=True)   File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 208, in copytree     raise Error, errors Error: [('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib'")] 

I haven't the foggiest idea what's wrong. Looking at all the files in /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/ and below every single file is owned by root:wheel

How can I fix it?

Answer 1

This happens due to the System Integrity Protection introduced in OS X El Capitan.

Adding --user python to the command allowed this to work.

In other words

pip install --upgrade setuptools --user python