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Install Python#

These instructions describe how to install Python on a Linux server. RStudio's professional products require multiple versions of Python. These instructions install Python appropriately from pre-compiled binaries.

Instructions for installing Python from source can be found here.

Install required dependencies#

These instructions use conda, a package management utility, to install different versions of Python. After installing Python, conda environments are NOT used by RStudio's professional products.

Terminal

$ sudo mkdir /opt/Python
$ sudo curl -fsSL -o /opt/Python/miniconda.sh https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh 
$ sudo chmod 755 /opt/Python/miniconda.sh
$ sudo /opt/Python/miniconda.sh -b -p /opt/Python/miniconda

Specify Python Version#

Terminal

$ export PYTHON_VERSION="3.7.7"

Download and install Python#

Terminal

sudo /opt/Python/miniconda/bin/conda create --quiet --yes \
      --prefix /opt/Python/"${PYTHON_VERSION}" \
      --channel conda-forge \
      python="${PYTHON_VERSION}"

Verify Python installation#

Verify that Python is installed by running the following command:

Terminal

$ /opt/Python/"${PYTHON_VERSION}"/bin/python --version

(Optional) Configure a PyPI repository#

You can specify a default PyPI mirror for all installations of Python by creating a pip configuration file. This can be useful if you are using an internal PyPI mirror such as RStudio Package Manager:

To do so, create a file located at /etc/pip.conf containing:

File: /etc/pip.conf

[global]
index-url = https://example.company.com/pypi/latest

Replace https://example.company.com/pypi/latest with the URL for your PyPI mirror, available in Package Manager on the "Setup" page of your PyPI repository.

(Optional) Install additional Python packages#

You can install additional Python packages into your Python environment by running a command such as:

Terminal

$ sudo /opt/Python/"${PYTHON_VERSION}"/bin/pip install altair beautifulsoup4 cloudpickle \
  cython dask gensim keras matplotlib nltk numpy pandas pillow pyarrow \
  requests scipy scikit-image scikit-learn scrapy seaborn spacy sqlalchemy \
  statsmodels tensorflow xgboost

(Optional) Add Python to the system PATH#

Info

You can configure Python on the system PATH so that users can use pip within a terminal to install packages to their home directory, similar to how R works with install.packages().

The recommended method to add Python to the PATH is to append the version of Python that you installed to the system-wide PATH variable. For example, this can be defined in a script within the /etc/profile.d/ directory:

File: /etc/profile.d/python.sh

PATH=/opt/Python/"${PYTHON_VERSION}"/bin:$PATH

(Optional) Make Python available as a Jupyter Kernel#

On RStudio Server Pro you can make the version of Python installed available for use in Jupyter by running these commands:

Terminal

sudo /opt/Python/${PYTHON_VERSION}/pip install ipykernel
sudo /opt/Python/${PYTHON_VERSION}/bin/python -m ipykernel install --name py${PYTHON_VERSION} --display-name "Python ${PYTHON_VERSION}"

(Optional) Install multiple versions of Python#

If you want to install multiple versions of Python on the same server, you can repeat the installation steps using a different value for PYTHON_VERSION. You do not need to reinstall the conda utility which is a pre-requisite.

For example, you can run the following commands to install Python 2.7.16:

Terminal:

export PYTHON_VERSION="2.7.16"
sudo /opt/Python/miniconda/bin/conda create --quiet --yes \
      --prefix /opt/Python/"${PYTHON_VERSION}" \
      --channel conda-forge \
      python="${PYTHON_VERSION}"