setup.py not honoring PIP_INDEX_URL

Question

I am running a local pypi server. I can install packages from this server by either specifying it with the -i option of the pip command or by setting the PIP_INDEX_URL environment variable. When I install a package that has prerequisites, setup.py has historically honored the PIP_INDEX_URL environment variable, pulling the additional packages from my local server.

However, on a couple of systems that have been recently installed, it is behaving differently. Running, for instance, python setup.py develop fails because it tries to install prerequisites packages from pypi.python.org.

I have updated all of the related python packages (python, distribute, virtualenv, pip, etc...) on all the systems I'm testing on and continue to see this discrepancy. On my "original" system, setup.py downloads prerequisites from the pypi server specified in my PIP_INDEX_URL environment variable. On the newer systems, I can't seem to make it honor this variable.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Create setup.cfg in the same folder as your setup.py with following content:

[easy_install]
allow_hosts = *.myintranet.example.com

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From: http://pythonhosted.org/setuptools/easy_install.html#restricting-downloads-with-allow-hosts

You can use the --allow-hosts (-H) option to restrict what domains EasyInstall will look for links and downloads on.

--allow-hosts=None prevents downloading altogether.

Answer 2

I ran into the same issue. Fundamentally, setup.py is using setuptools which leverages easy_install, not pip. Thus, it ignores any pip-related environment variables you set.

Rather than use python setup.py develop you can run pip (from the top of the package) pip install -e . to produce the same effect.