How to install virtualenv without using sudo?

The general idea is to install virtualenv itself globaly, i.e. sudo easy_install virtualenv or sudo pip install virtualenv, but then create the actual virtual environment ("run virtualenv") locally.

This solution is suitable in cases where no virtualenv is available system wide and you can not become root to install virtualenv. When I set up a debian for python development or deployment I always apt-get install python-virtualenv. It is more convenient to have it around than to do the bootstrap pointed out below. But without root power it may be the the way to go:

There is a bootstrap mechanism that should get you going.

Read: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall#creating-a-virtual-python

In essence you would do this in your home directory in a unix environment:

Given your python is version 2.6

    $ mkdir ~/bin
    $ mkdir -p ~/lib/python2.6
    $ mkdir -p ~/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages
    $ wget http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/virtual-python.py
    $ python virtual-python.py --no-site-packages
    $ wget http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py
    $ ~/bin/python ez_setup.py
    $ ~/local/bin/easy_install virtualenv
    $ ~/local/bin/virtualenv --no-site-packages thereyouare

There may be room for optimization. I don't like the local path. Just bin and lib would be nice. But it does its job.

You can also use the command below, it worked for me without sudo access. You may also need to modify your PYTHONPATH environment variable using export, see this SO answer for more details.

pip install --user virtualenv