How to Copy/Clone a Virtual Environment from Server to Local Machine

Question

I have an existing Python django Project running in Web Server. Now the client needs to make some changes in the existing code. So I need to set it up in my Local Machine. All the packages needed for this project is installed in a Virtual environment. How can I copy or clone this virtual environment to my Local machine to run this Project.

Solution 1

1. Run pip freeze > requirements.txt on the remote machine
2. Copy that requirements.txt file to your local machine
3. In your local virtual environment, run pip install -r requirements.txt

And, so long as all of the requirements are well behaved Python packages, you should be good to go.

Solution 2

Please using Freeze command and you will get text file with all the versions of packages. Then install them using easy install or pip install

Comments

[Niclas Nilsson]

Did'nt know about pip freeze. Is that all packages that are installed on the machine. Or is it only those that are installed by pip?

[David Wolever]

All of the packages installed on the machine (or in the virtual environment you're currently in).

[Niclas Nilsson]

That is great. I missed that :-)

[Jay Modi]

What if you don't want to install them again ? Can you copy installed package library in new virtual environment's location ?

[Wesley Ranger]

What if I want to copy the entire environment to an offline computer?

[Akshay Gehi]

This would work only for PyPI available packages right? If there are any custom libraries those would be missed isn't it