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title Install Python packages with pip
description Learn how to use Python pip to install new Python packages on an instance of SQL Server Machine Learning Services.
ms.prod sql
ms.technology machine-learning
ms.date 08/08/2019
ms.topic conceptual
author garyericson
ms.author garye
ms.reviewer davidph
monikerRange >=sql-server-2017||=sqlallproducts-allversions

Install Python packages with pip

[!INCLUDEappliesto-ss-xxxx-xxxx-xxx-md]

This article describes how to use the pip installer to install new Python packages on an instance of SQL Server Machine Learning Services. In general, the process for installing new packages is similar to that in a standard Python environment. However, some additional steps are required if the server does not have an internet connection.

For more information about package location and installation paths, see Get Python package information.

General considerations

  • You must have SQL Server Machine Learning Services installed with the Python language option.

  • Packages must be Python 3.5-compliant and run on Windows.

  • The Python package library is located in the Program Files folder of your SQL Server instance and, by default, installing in this folder requires administrator permissions. For more information, see Package library location.

  • Package installation is per instance. If you have multiple instances of Machine Learning Services, you must add the package to each one.

  • Before adding a package, consider whether the package is a good fit for the SQL Server environment.

    • We recommend that you use Python in-database for tasks that benefit from tight integration with the database engine, such as machine learning, rather than tasks that simply query the database.

    • If you add packages that put too much computational pressure on the server, performance will suffer.

    • On a hardened SQL Server environment, you might want to avoid the following:

      • Packages that require network access
      • Packages that require elevated file system access
      • Packages used for web development or other tasks that don't benefit by running inside SQL Server

Online installation (with Internet access)

If the SQL Server has access to the Internet, then you can use the standard pip package installer to install Python packages.

For example, the following procedure installs the scikit-plot package.

  1. Open a command prompt with administrator privileges.

  2. Navigate to the Scripts subfolder of PYTHON_SERVICES.

    For example, if Machine Learning Services has been installed using defaults, and you're installing the package on the default SQL instance, the path would be:

    ::: moniker range="=sql-server-2017||=sqlallproducts-allversions" C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL14.MSSQLSERVER\PYTHON_SERVICES\Scripts ::: moniker-end

    ::: moniker range=">sql-server-2017||=sqlallproducts-allversions" C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL15.MSSQLSERVER\PYTHON_SERVICES\Scripts ::: moniker-end

    For more information, see Default Python library location.

  3. Install the package using pip:

    pip install scikit-plot

Offline installation (no Internet access)

Frequently, servers that host production databases don't have an internet connection. To install a Python package in that environment, you download the package and any dependencies in advance, and then copy the files to a folder on the server. Once the files are in place, the packages can be installed on the server offline.

You can use the pip download command to collect a package and all its dependencies into a local folder. Then you can copy the folder to the server and use pip install with the --find-links option to install the package and dependencies.

For example, the following procedure installs the scikit-plot package.

  1. On a computer with Internet access, run the following command from a command prompt to download the package and dependencies into a subfolder named scikitplot:

    pip download scikit-plot -d scikitplot

  2. Copy the folder to the SQL server.

  3. On the server, open a command prompt with administrator privileges.

  4. Navigate to the Scripts subfolder of PYTHON_SERVICES.

    For example, if Machine Learning Services has been installed using defaults, and you're installing the package on the default SQL instance, the path would be:

    ::: moniker range="=sql-server-2017||=sqlallproducts-allversions" C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL14.MSSQLSERVER\PYTHON_SERVICES\Scripts ::: moniker-end

    ::: moniker range=">sql-server-2017||=sqlallproducts-allversions" C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL15.MSSQLSERVER\PYTHON_SERVICES\Scripts ::: moniker-end

    For more information, see Default Python library location.

  5. Run the following command - this assumes you copied the scikitplot folder to c:\temp\scikitplot on the server:

    pip install --no-index --find-links=file:c:/temp/scikitplot scikit-plot

    The name you specified at the end of the command, scikit-plot, is the name you use to load that package.

Load the package

You can now load the package as part of your Python script:

import scikit-plot

See Also