Using wheel for python deployment


I’ve discussed with my colleagues for better deployment process which replaces existing RPM based deployment.

There are several projects provides binary format, virtualenv manipulation, and caching for python deployment.

For example:

They are both great projects, but somehow our requirements are trivial

  • Install python package system-wise (may not be virtualenv)
  • Avoid binary recompile, should be done in build machine once
  • The deployed machines should not install gcc and development tools
  • The deployed machines may have limited internet access rights

After some investigation, wheel seems a perfect solution.

Usage:

# wheel need pip 1.4+
pip install --upgrade pip==dev
pip install wheel
pip wheel --wheel-dir=/tmp/wheelhouse flask
pip install --use-wheel --no-index --find-links=/tmp/wheelhouse flask

It also handles c-extension so well (we’re using MySQL-Python)
We can also deploy /tmp/wheelhouse to other deployment machines.

The result looks like

$ time pip install --pre --use-wheel --no-index --find-links=/tmp/wheelhouse flask
Ignoring indexes: https://pypi.python.org/simple/
Downloading/unpacking flask
Downloading/unpacking itsdangerous>=0.21 (from flask)
Downloading/unpacking Werkzeug>=0.7 (from flask)
Downloading/unpacking Jinja2>=2.4 (from flask)
Downloading/unpacking markupsafe (from Jinja2>=2.4->flask)
Installing collected packages: flask, itsdangerous, Werkzeug, Jinja2, markupsafe
Successfully installed flask itsdangerous Werkzeug Jinja2 markupsafe
Cleaning up...
pip install --pre --use-wheel --no-index flask 0.31s user 0.07s system 90% cpu 0.423 total

The PEP 427 was accepted, and the further pip release will contain wheel support.
I’m looking forward to seeing wheel will be used in our environment.


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