Everyone loves isolation. Makes our life easier and our systems much more robust. Isolating Jupyter notebooks makes no exception. Maybe you want to try some cutting edge scientific library, or more simply your latest project dependencies are not compatible with your current system setup.

Whatever is your situation, follow me in this simple tutorial on how to create an isolated python notebook kernel.

Introduction

If you are a day-to-day Jupyter user you probably know what kernels are. If you are not, a kernel is simply a language virtual machine running behind the scenes and connected to the Jupyter browser interface. Each time you create a new notebook you have to select the kernel from the top right drop down menu of the interface as shown here:

The goal of this blog post is to add a new kernel on a python environment that is different from the one that I have installed already. This is especially useful if you are trying out some project and you want the dependencies of the new project to be installed in a separate python local setup. We can do that in 3 “easy” steps 🙂

Step 1: Install pyenv, virtualenv, and pyenv-virtualenv

First we need a way to create different python environments. Each environment will have its own version and isolated package set. On paper it is far from easy, but thanks to Pyenv and virtualenv the job turns out to be pretty simple.

To install it on MacOSx all you need to do is:

$ brew update $ brew install pyenv 1 2 $ brew update $ brew install pyenv

and add to your .bashrc the following:

eval "$(pyenv init -)" 1 eval "$(pyenv init -)"

Installing virtualenv is also fairly easy:

$: pip install virtualenv $: pip install virtualenvwrapper 1 2 $ : pip install virtualenv $ : pip install virtualenvwrapper

Finally, install pyenv-virtualenv :

$: brew install pyenv $: brew install pyenv-virtualenv 1 2 $ : brew install pyenv $ : brew install pyenv - virtualenv

and add to your .bashrc the following:

eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)" 1 eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"

Step 2: Create an isolated python environment

Let’s assume now that I want to test my latest project in a Jupyter notebook running a Python kernel with Python 2.7.3. Since I have several projects running on this Python version I also want to have a dedicated Python 2.7.3 environment for my latest project.

First let’s see all the python versions available to pyenv:

$ pyenv install --list 1 $ pyenv install -- list

and let’s install the one we wants:

$ pyenv install 2.7.3 1 $ pyenv install 2.7.3

Now it is time to create a dedicated environment for our project. Suppose I am working on a bleeding age implementation of k_means clustering algorithm (…). This is how I create my working environment:

$: pyenv virtualenv 2.7.3 k_means 1 $ : pyenv virtualenv 2.7.3 k_means

and I now see the following:

:~$ pyenv versions system * 2.7.3 (set by /Users/motta/.pyenv/version) 3.5.0 k_means 1 2 3 4 5 : ~ $ pyenv versions system * 2.7.3 ( set by / Users / motta / . pyenv / version ) 3.5.0 k_means

Let’s switch our python environment to the one we created for our new project

:~$ pyenv virtualenvs k_means (created from /Users/motta/.pyenv/versions/2.7.11rc1) :~$ pyenv activate k_means :~$ pyenv virtualenvs * k_means (created from /Users/motta/.pyenv/versions/2.7.11rc1) :~$ 1 2 3 4 5 6 : ~ $ pyenv virtualenvs k_means ( created from / Users / motta / . pyenv / versions / 2.7.11rc1 ) : ~ $ pyenv activate k_means : ~ $ pyenv virtualenvs * k_means ( created from / Users / motta / . pyenv / versions / 2.7.11rc1 ) : ~ $

and let’s install the basic scientific packages we need:

:~$ pip install numpy :~$ pip install pandas 1 2 : ~ $ pip install numpy : ~ $ pip install pandas

these packages will be local to our k_means python installation and will not affect our system python (for example).

To access this environment from Jupyter you need the python kernel too, so let’s install it:

:~$ pip install ipykernel 1 : ~ $ pip install ipykernel

Finally, let’s deactivate our environment.

:~$ pyenv deactivate 1 : ~ $ pyenv deactivate

Step 3: Create your isolated Jupyter python kernel

Now we have to connect our Jupyter to the isolated python enviroment we created in the previous two steps. I am assuming you have already jupyter installed in your system Python. If not, go ahead and install it here.

If you are in the right environment with jupyter installed you should see the following:

:~$ pip list | grep jupyter jupyter-client (4.1.1) jupyter-core (4.0.6) 1 2 3 : ~ $ pip list | grep jupyter jupyter - client ( 4.1.1 ) jupyter - core ( 4.0.6 )

In order to install a new Jupyter kernel you need to check where Jupyter is reading its configuration files. To do that simply run the following:

:~$ jupyter --paths config: /Users/motta/.jupyter /Users/motta/.pyenv/versions/2.7.3/etc/jupyter /usr/local/etc/jupyter /etc/jupyter data: /Users/motta/Library/Jupyter /Users/motta/.pyenv/versions/2.7.3/share/jupyter /usr/local/share/jupyter /usr/share/jupyter runtime: /Users/motta/Library/Jupyter/runtime 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 : ~ $ jupyter -- paths config : / Users / motta / . jupyter / Users / motta / . pyenv / versions / 2.7.3 / etc / jupyter / usr / local / etc / jupyter / etc / jupyter data : / Users / motta / Library / Jupyter / Users / motta / . pyenv / versions / 2.7.3 / share / jupyter / usr / local / share / jupyter / usr / share / jupyter runtime : / Users / motta / Library / Jupyter / runtime

Jupyter search for the kernels in the data directories in the order they are displayed. First, we need to find out where pyenv is storing our k_means environment, and we do it by executing the following:

:~$ pyenv activate k_means :~$ pyenv which python /Users/motta/.pyenv/versions/k_means/bin/python :~$ pyenv deactivate 1 2 3 4 : ~ $ pyenv activate k_means : ~ $ pyenv which python / Users / motta / . pyenv / versions / k_means / bin / python : ~ $ pyenv deactivate

Now we are ready to create our kernel. First let’s create the folder:

:~$ mkdir /Users/motta/Library/Jupyter/kernels/k_means 1 : ~ $ mkdir / Users / motta / Library / Jupyter / kernels / k_means

and let’s add the following kernel.json file:

{ "argv": [ "/Users/motta/.pyenv/versions/k_means/bin/python", "-m", "ipykernel", "-f", "{connection_file}"], "display_name": "k_means", "language": "python" } 1 2 3 4 5 6 { "argv" : [ "/Users/motta/.pyenv/versions/k_means/bin/python" , "-m" , "ipykernel" , "-f" , "{connection_file}" ] , "display_name" : "k_means" , "language" : "python" }

If you now run jupyter notebook you will have the new kernel available!

Conclusions

In this blog post I presented how to create an isolated python kernel in your jupyter installation. This is not the only way to do it, so please share in the comments if you have better ways to achieve the same result!

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References