autopip 1.1.0

Easily install apps from PyPI and automatically keep them updated

autopip

Easily install apps from PyPI and automatically keep them updated.

autopip automates the creation of a virtual environment using venv, installs any Python package with scripts (i.e. app) from PyPI using pip, and atomically creates symlinks for installed scripts in /usr/local/bin so you can easily use them. Each app version is installed cleanly into its own virtual environment. Optionally, it can setup crontab entries to install apps on a schedule to keep them updated automatically.

FYI Currently supports Python 3.x apps only, but 2.x is coming soon.

To install autopip to /usr/local/bin:

sudo pip3 install autopip

No need to worry about tainting system Python install as autopip has no install dependencies and never will. Alternatively, you can install it in a virtual environment and obviously that is not available to other users until we use autopip to install itself later:

python3 -m venv ~/.virtualenvs/autopip
source ~/.virtualenvs/autopip/bin/activate
pip3 install autopip

Optionally, create install directories and chown to your user so that we can create symlinks in /usr/local/bin:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/opt /usr/local/var
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/*

Now, you can easily install any apps from PyPI:

$ autopip install workspace-tools
Installing workspace-tools to /usr/local/opt/apps/workspace-tools/3.2.2
Hourly auto-update enabled via cron service
Updating symlinks in /usr/local/bin
+ wst

Install paths are selected based on your user’s permission to write to /opt or /usr/local/opt. If you do not have permission for either, then autopip will install to your user home at ~/.apps, therefore you will need to add ~/.apps/bin to your PATH env var to easily run scripts from installed apps. To install script symlinks to /usr/local/bin, either chown/chmod dirs in /usr/local/* to be writeable by your user as suggested above or run autopip using sudo (i.e. as root). To see why a particular path is selected, append --debug after autopip when running it.

To save typing a few letters, you can also use the app alias – short for autopip – instead of autopip. It is the same as autopip except it does not auto-update unless you provide a value to --update option (e.g. hourly, daily, weekly, monthly).

$ app install ansible-hostmanager
Installing ansible-hostmanager to /usr/local/opt/apps/ansible-hostmanager/0.2.3
Updating script symlinks in /usr/local/bin
+ ah

To show currently installed apps and their scripts:

$ app list --scripts
ansible-hostmanager  0.2.3   /usr/local/opt/apps/ansible-hostmanager/0.2.3
                             /usr/local/bin/ah
workspace-tools      3.2.2   /usr/local/opt/apps/workspace-tools/3.2.2      [updates hourly]
                             /usr/local/bin/wst

To uninstall:

app uninstall ansible-hostmanager

And you can even keep autopip updated automatically by installing itself:

$ app install autopip --update daily
Installing autopip to /opt/apps/autopip/1.0.0
Daily auto-update enabled via cron service
Updating symlinks in /usr/local/bin
* app (updated)
* autopip (updated)

Now, that’s convenience! ;)

If you need to use a private PyPI index, just configure index-url in ~/.pip/pip.conf as autopip simply uses pip under the hood.

To control versioning and uniform installations across multiple hosts/users, you can also define an autopip installation group using entry points. See example in developer-tools package.

Links & Contact Info

PyPI Package: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/autopip

GitHub Source: https://github.com/maxzheng/autopip

Report Issues/Bugs: https://github.com/maxzheng/autopip/issues

Follow: https://twitter.com/MaxZhengX

Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxzheng

Contact: maxzheng.os @t gmail.com