How to avoid "Permission denied" when using pip with virtualenv

Solution:

If you created the virtualenv as root, run the following command:

sudo chown -R your_username:your_username path/to/virtuaelenv/

This will probably fix your problem.

Cheers

virtualenv permission problems might occur when you create the virtualenv as sudo and then operate without sudo in the virtualenv.

As found out in your question's comment, the solution here is to create the virtualenv without sudo to be able to work (esp. write) in it without sudo.

If you created virtual environment using root then use this command

sudo su

it will give you the root access and then activate your virtual environment using this

source /root/.env/ENV_NAME/bin/activate

I was getting permission denied when trying to activate my virtual environment. I landed on this page trying to find solutions so perhaps this could also help others who are facing similar issues

source your_env_name_goes_here/bin/activate

I was using the wrong command (without the source), to activate my environment. If you're on zsh that's the correct command to use. If not, python docs has a table of the commands to use depending on your platform and shell (windows or mac, bash or powershell etc)

In my case, I was using mkvirtualenv, but didn't tell it I was going to be using python3. I got this error:

mkvirtualenv hug
pip3 install hug -U
....
error: could not create '/usr/lib/python3.4/site-packages': Permission denied

It worked after specifying python3:

mkvirtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3 hug
pip3 install hug -U

I didn't create my virtualenv using sudo. So Sebastian's answer didn't apply to me. My project is called utils. I checked utils directory and saw this:

-rw-r--r-- 1 macuser staff 983 6 Jan 15:17 README.md
drwxr-xr-x 6 root staff 204 6 Jan 14:36 utils.egg-info
-rw-r--r-- 1 macuser staff 31 6 Jan 15:09 requirements.txt

As you can see, utils.egg-info is owned by root not macuser. That is why it was giving me permission denied error. I also had to remove /Users/macuser/.virtualenvs/armoury/lib/python2.7/site-packages/utils.egg-link as it was created by root as well. I did pip install -e . again after removing those, and it worked.

You did not activate the virtual environment before using pip.

Try it with:

$(your venv path) . bin/activate

And then use pip -r requirements.txt on your main folder

I had the same problem. I created *and activated a venv as a regular user in Git Bash within VS Code running on Windows 11 and got a "permission denied" when trying to run pip. I could not use sudo at all (corporate laptop).

My solution was:

Create your venv like normal (non-root user):

python -m venv <venv_name>

Activate your venv:

source venv/Scripts/activate

Then, assuming you're using a requirements.txt file, run:

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

The key is the "python -m"

You may need to upgrade your pip if a package fails to install properly. Try:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

then try reinstalling your requirements.

If you want to confirm this is the same error to the solution above, you can recreate the error by:

*after you activate your venv, run:

python --version

or

which python

and they should both indicate you're using the python within your venv (again, assuming you activated it)

Then run:

pip --version

and you should see your permission denied.

$ pip --version
bash: \venv/Scripts/pip: Permission denied

Then running

python -m pip --version

should show you the correct pip version of the venv and path within your venv.

While creating virtualenv if you use sudo the directory is created with root privileges.So when you try to install a package with non-sudo user you won't have permission to install into it. So always create virtualenv without sudo and install without sudo.

You can also copy packages installed on global python to virtualenv.

cp -r /lib/python/site-packages/* virtualenv/lib/python/site-packages/

I've also had this happen (by accident) after creating a new venv while inside an existing virtual environment. an easy way to diagnose this would be to see where the python is symlinked to, i.e. run:

ls -l venv/bin/python

and make sure it points to the appropriate Python binary. For most systems this will be /usr/bin/python or /usr/bin/python3. while if it points to an existing virtual environment it'll be something like /home/youruser/somedir/bin/python. if it's the latter than I'd suggest recreating the venv while making sure that you aren't "inside" any existing virtualenv (i.e. run deactivate )

On centos 7 this worked:

first, create it

virtualenv --python=/usr/local/bin/python3.8 fastapi

then to activate

source fastapi/bin/activate

I have had this issue also. I've checked my file & directory ownership and permissions using ls -hal. I own the files and they have the right permissions. For me, the issue is running the pip command, but it's the wrong pip. Try running which pip to find out which version of pip is being used. From the activated virtual environment, run python3 -m pip install packagename instead of pip install packagename. If it gets worse, you can run /path/to/the/pip/you/want/pip install filename.

for me, somehow the repo I wanted to install locally had got some different permissions applied. I removed the repo, re-cloned and install worked fine.

cd /path/to/repo
rm -rf package
git clone [email protected]:pipeline/package.git
git install -e /path/to/repo/package

I was facing the same issue in Windows 11, however, I could not find any specific thread for the same. That's why I am giving the solution here.

• While creating the venv, make sure the pip in the global installation is up to date. In simple words, before creating the venv, update pip in the main installation of python using \your\python\path.exe -m pip install --upgrade pip (To get the path, use where python).
• After that, create the venv using \your\python\path.exe -m venv <venv name>
• Now again list all the python environments using where python and copy the newly created venv path
• Use this new venv path whenever using any python command. For example \your\new\venv\path -m pip install --upgrade pip or \your\new\venv\path main.py etc.
• After activating the venv, you can use it normally without mentioning specified python path.

Hope this helps!

• python
• python-3.x
• pip
• virtualenv
• python-venv