OSError: [Errno 13] Permission denied when installing django

Question

I am on ubuntu 14.04 freshly installed, and I have installed pip and virtualenvironment but when I try to install django I get the following error message:

name@computername:/$ pip install django
Collecting django
  Using cached Django-1.7.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: django

  Exception:
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip-6.0.7-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 232, in main
      status = self.run(options, args)
    File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip-6.0.7-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 347, in run
      root=options.root_path,
    File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip-6.0.7-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_set.py", line 549, in install
      **kwargs
    File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip-6.0.7-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_install.py", line 740, in install
      self.move_wheel_files(self.source_dir, root=root)
    File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip-6.0.7-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_install.py", line 949, in move_wheel_files
      isolated=self.isolated,
    File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip-6.0.7-py2.7.egg/pip/wheel.py", line 234, in move_wheel_files
      clobber(source, lib_dir, True)
    File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip-6.0.7-py2.7.egg/pip/wheel.py", line 205, in clobber
      os.makedirs(destdir)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/os.py", line 157, in makedirs
      mkdir(name, mode)
  OSError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django'

It does, however work when I try installing on a venv.

Could this have anything to do with $PYTHONPATH?

(I believe this is also causing conflicts when I try to run runserver on an already started project. But I will leave that for another question if this one doesn't resolve it.)

Solution

You need to activate your virtual environment first.

$ source PATH_TO_ENV/bin/env
$ pip install django

In a newly created virtualenv there will also be a activate shell script. For Windows systems, activation scripts are provided for the Command Prompt and Powershell.

On Posix systems, this resides in /ENV/bin/

Unless you do this you are using system python and system libs. That's why you see the error.

If you need to install a lib into the system scope you need root access:

$ sudo pip install django

Comments

[import-antigravity]

Installing and running django on a virtual env works fine. It's ony when I try doing it in the system that it doens't work. I wanted to have a copy on on my system aswell as on my venv. Is that unecessary?

[Pavel Reznikov]

To install a library in system scope you need root access. See UPD.

[import-antigravity]

I don't know how I missed that. thanks for the answer!