Configuration ============= pip allows you to set its default options by using the following facilities, in the order of each item's importance: 1. Command line options 2. `Environment variables`_ 3. `Config files`_ 1. Command specific section, e.g. ``[install]`` 2. Global section ``[global]`` That means it will check each of those configuration sources and set the defaults appropriately. Examples -------- - ``--host=foo`` overrides ``PIP_HOST=foo`` - ``PIP_HOST=foo`` overrides a config file with ``[global] host = foo`` - A command specific section in the config file ``[<command>] host = bar`` overrides the option with same name in the ``[global]`` config file section - Environment variables override config files Config files ------------ pip allows you to set all command line option defaults in a standard ini style config file. The names of the settings are derived from the long command line option, e.g. if you want to use a different package index (``--index-url``) and set the HTTP timeout (``--default-timeout``) to 60 seconds your config file would look like this: .. code-block:: ini [global] timeout = 60 index-url = http://download.zope.org/ppix Each subcommand can be configured optionally in its own section so that every global setting with the same name will be overridden; e.g. decreasing the ``timeout`` to ``10`` seconds when running the `freeze` (`Freezing Requirements`_) command and using ``60`` seconds for all other commands is possible with: .. code-block:: ini [global] timeout = 60 [freeze] timeout = 10 Boolean options like ``--ignore-installed`` or ``--no-dependencies`` can be set like this: .. code-block:: ini [install] ignore-installed = true no-dependencies = yes Appending options like ``--find-links`` can be written on multiple lines: .. code-block:: ini [global] find-links = http://download.example.com [install] find-links = http://mirror1.example.com http://mirror2.example.com Location ******** The names and locations of the configuration files vary slightly across platforms. On Unix and Mac OS X the configuration file is: :file:`$HOME/.pip/pip.conf` And on Windows, the configuration file is: :file:`%HOME%\\pip\\pip.ini` Environment variables ----------------------- Just like with `config files`_, each of pip's command line options (long version, e.g. ``--find-links``) are automatically set by looking for environment variables with the name format ``PIP_<UPPER_NAME>``. That means the name of the command line options are capitalized and have dashes (``-``) replaced with underscores (``_``). For example, to redefine the default timeout you can also set an environment variable:: export PIP_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT=60 pip install ipython Which is the same as passing the option to pip directly:: pip --default-timeout=60 install ipython This also works for appending command line options, like ``--find-links``. Just leave an empty space between the passsed values, e.g.:: export PIP_FIND_LINKS="http://mirror1.example.com http://mirror2.example.com" is the same as calling:: pip install --find-links=http://mirror1.example.com --find-links=http://mirror2.example.com