Upgrading setuptools on OSX El Capitan

Question

I'm trying to upgrade setuptools. Well actually I'm trying to upgrade ansible but it's trying to upgrade setuptools and failing. Trying to do it myself also fails. Even trying to uninstall it fails

$ sudo -H pip install --upgrade setuptools
Collecting setuptools
  Using cached setuptools-18.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: setuptools
  Found existing installation: setuptools 1.1.6
    Uninstalling setuptools-1.1.6:
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 211, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 311, in run
    root=options.root_path,
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_set.py", line 640, in install
    requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_install.py", line 716, in uninstall
    paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_uninstall.py", line 125, in remove
    renames(path, new_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/utils/__init__.py", line 315, in renames
    shutil.move(old, new)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 299, in move
    copytree(src, real_dst, symlinks=True)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 208, in copytree
    raise Error, errors
Error: [('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib', '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-OyTXsR-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib'")]

I haven't the foggiest idea what's wrong. Looking at all the files in /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/ and below every single file is owned by root:wheel

How can I fix it?

Answer 1

This happens due to the System Integrity Protection introduced in OS X El Capitan.

Adding --user python to the command allowed this to work.

In other words

pip install --upgrade setuptools --user python