Python – Packaging a virtualenv

deploymentpackagingpythonvirtualenv

I'd like to package a Python virtualenv with fpm, so that I can deploy it to my servers. I want to setup the virtualenv somewhere in my home directory without having to use root permissions, but deploy to e.g. /opt. virtualenv itself seems to have no destdir option. I know that there is a relocatable option, but it failed for some packages in the past and I don't trust it to work in all cases. Are there any other options, besides setting up a chroot for packaging or actually setting up the virtualenv in my local /opt directory?

Best Answer

Inspired by this build script I've been testing and using virtualenv-tools for serveral month now to relocate virtual environments and never had any problems. It is easily possible to relocate a virtualenv with e.g. virtualenv-tools --update-path /opt/my_project/virtualenv and package it with fpm afterwards.

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Python – Is virtualenv suitable for a production server

Yes, a virtualenv is quite suitable for production -- we have (very) large Python-using customers running their apps inside of a virtualenv, and it works very well to keep them isolated from the system Python configuration.

However, I wouldn't recommend using it for "portability" -- trying to transport the whole thing from machine to machine. There's far too much opportunity for subtle failures due to incompatibilities nobody else is going to notice (because it's not something that's widely done). Instead, have automation which is capable of setting up a new virtualenv matching your requirements on a new machine.

Ubuntu – Supervisord and virtualenv

The command you provide should use the python binary inside the virtual environment:

command = /home/user/Sites/my-site/venv/bin/python /home/user/Sites/my-site/app.py

Best Answer

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Python – Is virtualenv suitable for a production server

Ubuntu – Supervisord and virtualenv

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