Difference between sudo -H pip install and pip --user install

Question

I am wondering what is the difference between these two commands (I have the feeling that they are identical):

sudo -H pip install <package>
pip --user install <package>

More informations:
From the sudo manpage:

-H, --set-home
    Request that the security policy set the HOME environment
    variable to the home directory specified by the target user's
    password database entry. Depending on the policy, this may be
    the default behavior.

And the pip user guide: https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/user_guide/

Related questions:
What is the difference between pip install and sudo pip install?
What is the purpose of "pip install --user ..."? and
sudo pip install VS pip install --user
But none of them talk about the sudo -H option or the precise difference between the two.

are identical if the user is root, the "--user" option install for current user only — ZiTAL, Nov 19 '18 at 09:50
duplicated of: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42988977/what-is-the-purpose-pip-install-user — ZiTAL, Nov 19 '18 at 09:51
This is not a duplicate. The other question has nothing about sudo in it. — Simon, Nov 19 '18 at 10:31

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 19 '18 at 10:45

0

sudo is short for 'superuser do'. It simply runs the command with root privileges, which may be useful if you are installing to a directory you normally wouldn't have access to.

However, in the examples you have given the two commands would function identically, as you don't need root privileges to pip install --user

answered Nov 19 '18 at 10:45

notjoshno

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Could you explain why the: pip --version command returns me 18.1 and the sudo -H pip --version returns me 18.1 ? – swiss_knight Nov 23 '18 at 15:29
`pip --version` does not require elevated permissions, therefore giving it those permissions with `sudo -H` will not change the output – notjoshno Nov 24 '18 at 16:38
It will not change ? But it actually does by me. – swiss_knight Nov 28 '18 at 18:55
@s.k In your comment you said that both commands return 18.1. Was this a typo? – notjoshno Nov 29 '18 at 12:12
Oops, yes it was, sorry; pip alone returned 18.0. So I have to upload pip twice; one with sudo -H and one without. – swiss_knight Nov 30 '18 at 11:58
@s.k This means that you have pip version 18.0 installed on your system, and pip version 18.1 installed in your home directory – notjoshno Dec 01 '18 at 14:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 25 '22 at 09:23

The difference comes down to the permissions that are given to the package, and the location where the package is installed. When you run a command as root, the package will be installed with root permissions.

Here's an example:

Running sudo -H pip3 install coloredlogs results in the following:

$ sudo pip3 show coloredlogs | grep Location
Location: /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages

$ ls -l /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages
drwxr-sr-x 4 root staff 4096 Feb 25 01:14 coloredlogs

$ which coloredlogs
/usr/local/bin/coloredlogs

Running pip3 install --user <package> results in the following:

$ pip3 show coloredlogs | grep Location
Location: /home/josh/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages

$ ls -l /home/josh/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages
drwxrwxr-x 4 josh josh 4096 Feb 25 01:14 coloredlogs

$ which coloredlogs
coloredlogs not found

Notice the location differences between the two, and also notice that the package isn't installed on PATH when installed using the --user flag. If for some reason I wanted to directly call the package, I would need to add /home/josh/.local/bin to my PATH.

Difference between sudo -H pip install and pip --user install

2 Answers2