macOS Install Certificates script breaks with PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV #159210

Bug report

pip includes a safety mechanism where defining a PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV environment variable will prevent accidentally installing packages into the global environment.

This can be a useful property to set in your .zprofile (or equivalent) to ensure that a virtual environment is active before using pip. However, if .zprofile defines PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=1, this prevents the Install Certificates.command script from operating.

As a workaround, the script can be run in a local shell where the user has unset PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV; or .zprofile be temporarily modified so the script can be executed with a double click in the finder.

The Install Certificates script is a rare case where installing in the global environment is the point, so it should be resident to global definitions of PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV is defined.

CPython versions tested on:

CPython main branch

Operating systems tested on:

macOS

Linked PRs

• gh-159210: Disable PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV when updating certificates. #159214
• [3.15] gh-159210: Disable virtualenv enforcement when updating certificates. (GH-159214) #159218
• [3.14] gh-159210: Disable virtualenv enforcement when updating certificates. (GH-159214) #159219