Option to install package globally for multi-user access

Hi All, not sure if this qualifies as a feature request, or if it’s already possible and just needs to be documented?

pipx by default installs its virtualenvs in a folder inside the user’s home directory (ie ~/.local/pipx/venvs/), and installs the entrypoint binaries for those packages/virtualenvs in the user’s personal path (ie ~/.local/bin).

Is it possible to install packages with pipx such that they are globally executable by all users on a system (ie install entrypoint binaries in /usr/local/bin, install virtualenvs somewhere that all users can access them?

How would this feature be useful?

Having this ability would make pipx a prime candidate for people looking to deploy python software in multi-user environments. Without this ability, pipx is not usable at all in such situations

Describe the solution you’d like

Ideally, some kind of --shared or --global flag would be the most straightforward solution, but even something like an optional environment variable would be nice

Ex: sudo pipx install --global cowsay

Describe alternatives you’ve considered

There are currently no alternatives / workarounds that I’m aware of. I cannot find anything about this in the documentation, the github issues, or on the web

[eode]

I definitely would like to have a --global option for pipx. I’ve put some thought into how this could be done (fairly) reasonably:

• New environment vars:
  • PIPX_GLOBAL_HOME
  • PIPX_GLOBAL_BIN_DIR
• Normal ‘local’ usage is treated just as it is now (including when using as root) except:
  • If the global directory is present, global info is included in output
  • --local can be specified to exclude global info
  • install output changes to “These apps are now locally available”
• With --global:
  • Use PIPX_GLOBAL_* env vars.
    • Use PIPX_GLOBAL_HOME, or distro-specific global install dir, or /opt/pipx/ (failover)
    • Use PIPX_GLOBAL_BIN_DIR, the distro-specific global bin dir, or /usr/local/bin/ (failover)
  • Treat the global dir as though we have write permission – user should have elevated permissions using sudo
• Encourage proper usage via cli
  • Wherever a command looks like it might be mistaken, issue a warning / suggestion
    • "Writing into /home/someuser/.local/pipx, owned by someuser, as root. Did you mean to use --global?
    • "Installing foopkg locally for the user root. Did you mean to use --global?
• JSON output includes “global venvs” key as a sibling to the “venvs” key.
• Release on a major version change, because it introduces a new concept and changes the output.

Example usage:

$ pipx list
global venvs are in /opt/pipx/venvs
apps are exposed on your $PATH at /usr/local/bin
   package poetry 1.1.0, installed using Python 3.10.4
    - poetry
local venvs are in /home/someuser/.local/pipx/venvs
apps are exposed on your $PATH at /home/someuser/.local/bin
   package doit 0.36.0, installed using Python 3.10.4
    - doit
   package poetry 1.1.14, installed using Python 3.10.4
    - poetry
$ pipx list --local
local venvs are in /home/someuser/.local/pipx/venvs
apps are exposed on your $PATH at /home/someuser/.local/bin
   package doit 0.36.0, installed using Python 3.10.4
    - doit
   package poetry 1.1.14, installed using Python 3.10.4
    - poetry
$ sudo pipx install --global foocmd
  installed package foocmd 0.9.0, installed using Python 3.10.4
  These apps are now globally available
    - foo
    - foolog
done! ✨ 🌟 ✨
$ pipx install foocmd
  installed package foocmd 0.9.0, installed using Python 3.10.4
  These apps are now locally available
    - foo
    - foolog
done! ✨ 🌟 ✨

All-in-all, that’s a fair amount of work, but not a ton of work to make the change, but I think that all of that work would be necessary to fully implement this change.

Alternately, --global could just do an override of the existing PIPX_HOME and PIPX_BIN_DIR env-vars, using distro-specific settings. This just means that sudo pipx list --global is required to read global items. I just like the UX of pipx list showing global and local installs.

[carlolars]

I think it would be nice to have a switch for global install. For example when using doas instead of sudo I had to first do doas su to run the pipx command with the environment variables as root. It would be a lot easier to just do doas pipx install --global cowsay.