How to run bdist_wheel on Ubuntu 18.04? - docker

Question

I've got a small Dockerfile where I'm trying to get to a point where I can RUN pip3 bdist_wheel successfully. That is, without getting this error:
unknown command "bdist_wheel" - maybe you meant "wheel"
I've tried installing everything mentioned in this answer, but no luck.
Minimal repro Dockerfile and docker build output:
FROM ubuntu:18.04
RUN apt-get update \
&& apt-get install -qyy -o APT::Install-Recommends=false -o APT::Install-Suggests=false \
file \
gcc \
python3 \
python3-dev \
python3-pip \
python3-setuptools \
python3-venv \
&& apt-get clean \
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN pip3 install --cache-dir=/tmp/pipcache --upgrade pip && rm -rf /tmp/pipcache
RUN pip install --cache-dir=/tmp/pipcache poetry && rm -rf /tmp/pipcache
WORKDIR /src/app
RUN poetry new .
RUN poetry add gevent
The most relevant part of the output is of course
error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel'

Answer 1

First, some notes to the error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel' output. When running pip install <pkgname>, pip will try to find a prebuilt wheel that matches your target platform. If it doesn't find one, it tries to build a wheel itself -- the source dist is downloaded and pip wheel is run to produce the wheel. On success, the built wheel is installed. On any failure (the wheel package not installed, python setup.py bdist_wheel failed or whatever), pip will fallback to the second option, which is the distutils installation method: running python setup.py install over the unpacked source dist. This is what you can observe in the log you posted:
Failed building wheel for gevent
...
Running setup.py install for gevent: started
Only when the setup.py install also fails, the installation is failed unconditionally. So while pip can't indeed build the wheel b/c the wheel package is not installed, it is not an issue for the failing installation. You can fix this by adding wheel to development packages:
RUN poetry add --dev wheel
RUN poetry add gevent
but this is an optional thing and won't affect the build result.
Now, to the real error:
Running '(cd "/tmp/pip-build-ek9pxyw2/gevent/deps/libev" && sh ./configure -C > configure-output.txt )' in /tmp/pip-build-ek9pxyw2/gevent
config.status: error: in `/tmp/pip-build-ek9pxyw2/gevent/deps/libev':
config.status: error: Something went wrong bootstrapping makefile fragments
for automatic dependency tracking. Try re-running configure with the
'--disable-dependency-tracking' option to at least be able to build
the package (albeit without support for automatic dependency tracking).
See `config.log' for more details
Something went wrong bootstrapping makefile fragments usually means that you're missing make. Install it in addition to the rest:
RUN apt install -y make
After doing that and rerunning the build, I've got the last error
error: src/gevent/libev/corecext.c: No such file or directory
This is because gevent needs Cython for generating the C extension sources. Install it before installing gevent:
RUN poetry add --dev cython
RUN poetry add gevent
The complete Dockerfile for reference, changes in bold:
FROM ubuntu:18.04
RUN apt-get update \
&& apt-get install -qyy -o APT::Install-Recommends=false -o APT::Install-Suggests=false \
file \
gcc \
python3 \
python3-dev \
python3-pip \
python3-setuptools \
python3-venv \
&& apt-get clean \
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN pip3 install --cache-dir=/tmp/pipcache --upgrade pip && rm -rf /tmp/pipcache
RUN pip install --cache-dir=/tmp/pipcache poetry && rm -rf /tmp/pipcache
WORKDIR /src/app
RUN poetry new .
RUN apt update
RUN apt install -y make
RUN poetry add --dev wheel cython
RUN poetry add gevent
Neither wheel nor cython are required to actually run gevent, so they can be safely uninstalled afterwards to reduce the image size.