Problem running python from crontab - “invalid Python installation”

Question

I have python 2.7 installed on my linux box, and I'm trying to schedule a python script via crontab. The script works fine from the command line, however when running via cron I get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site.py", line 553, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site.py", line 535, in main
    known_paths = addusersitepackages(known_paths)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site.py", line 268, in addusersitepackages
    user_site = getusersitepackages()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site.py", line 243, in getusersitepackages
    user_base = getuserbase() # this will also set USER_BASE
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site.py", line 233, in getuserbase
    USER_BASE = get_config_var('userbase')
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/sysconfig.py", line 535, in get_config_var
    return get_config_vars().get(name)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/sysconfig.py", line 434, in get_config_vars
    _init_posix(_CONFIG_VARS)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/sysconfig.py", line 298, in _init_posix
    raise IOError(msg)
IOError: invalid Python installation: unable to open /usr/include/python2.7/pyconfig.h (No such file or directory)

I see that /usr/include/python2.7 does't exist, but /usr/local/include/python2.7/ does. Did I make a mistake while installing python?

Answer 1

You probably just have 2 versions installed, one of which is broken. If your cron is just directly calling python instead of a specific path, your PATH probably contains /usr/bin before /usr/local/bin (which is typical) - so in your cron, specify which python to use, or remove the existing one in /usr/bin and symlink /path/to/good/python to /usr/bin/python.

Edit: scratch that, just re-read and saw that it works fine from the command line. python-dev is probably the way to go. Sorry!

Answer 2

You need python2.7-dev, which installs the includes and headers.

For Ubuntu, you run sudo apt-get install python2.7-dev to install it. What Linux distro are you running?

Answer 3

I am assuming that in your crontab file, you are giving the full path to the python executable, and not just relying on she-bang with executable permissions. If not, please give point to the full-path python2.7 in the crontab file and also use the same full-path on the command line to ensure that you don't get this problem.If you get this on command line too, then it is probably missing some development headers. (Are you trying to compile something like using setup.py build and trying to do it via crontab?) I am trying to understand where would one need those headers. So, apart from the above suggestion, extra information from your end might ofcourse help further.