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pythonpippersistencejupyter-lab

How to configure pip so that pip install is always called with argument --user?

I'm configuring a jupyterlab single-user instance. The users will need to install Python packages using

pip install <package-name>

I want to configure pip so that pip install is always called with argument --user, even if it is invoked without --user. Is it possible to achieve this? If so, how?

The reason behind it is that the $HOME directory is mounted on a persistent volume, and I want the user to still have its packages installed after restarting the jupyterlab server. By installing packages using pip install --user <package-name>, the packages will be stored in $HOME/.local/lib/python${PY_MAJOR}.${PY_MINOR}/site-packages and will therefore persist even after a server restart.

Solution

  • A solution that works on ubuntu:

    Add this in $HOME/.pip/pip.conf:

    [install]
user = yes

    Documentation: