Installing Packages

Goal: Get the base software we need to run JupyterHub.

Install Python and npm¶

sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo apt install -y npm python3 python3-dev python3-full

Verification:¶

python3 --version
npm --version

Python 3.13.5
9.2.0

We now have the runtimes for Python and Node.js and can start installing the packages we need.

Install a Proxy¶

We are going to start with the default proxy implementation, which is configurable-http-proxy, a Node.js-based proxy implementation.

sudo npm install -g configurable-http-proxy

Verification:¶

configurable-http-proxy --version

5.1.0

Install JupyterHub and JupyterLab¶

Create a virtual environment¶

First we create a virtual environment under /opt/jupyterhub. The /opt folder is where apps not belonging to the operating system are commonly installed. Both jupyterlab and jupyterhub will be installed into this virtualenv. Create it with the command:

sudo python3 -m venv /opt/jupyterhub

Note that we use /opt/jupyterhub/bin/python3 -m pip install each time - this makes sure that the packages are installed to the correct virtual environment.

From now on, we expect to be running in the Hub environment, via:

source /opt/jupyterhub/bin/activate

Verification¶

which python
which pip
pip --version

/opt/jupyterhub/bin/python
/opt/jupyterhub/bin/pip
pip 25.1.1 from /opt/jupyterhub/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pip (python 3.13)

Install JupyterHub and JupyterLab¶

Now we can install JupyterHub and JupyterLab in the /opt/jupyterhub env with pip:

# (/opt/jupyterhub)
sudo $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/python3 -m pip install --upgrade jupyterhub jupyterlab

Verification:¶

jupyterhub --version
jupyter lab --version

5.4.2
4.5.0

Key Concepts¶

Where are we now?¶

We have:

• Runtimes for Python and Node.js, which are needed to run JupyterHub

• The proxy used by JupyterHub (configurable-http-proxy, a node.js package)

• A virtual environment at /opt/jupyterhub containing JupyterHub itself and JupyterLab

This is everything that we need to run a basic installation of JupyterHub.

Alternatives¶

There are approximately one million tools for installing Python or Node.js and managing environments. In this case, we are using apt to get the two runtimes and standard Python venv to create a virtualenv for installing our Python packages.

You can also use conda, mamba, pixi, asdf, nix, pyenv, uv, or whatever tool you like to do the same. The main end goal is that we have:

1. jupyterhub and jupyterlab installed in an env

2. configurable-http-proxy installed

3. the executables configurable-http-proxy, jupyterhub, jupyterhub-singleuser on our $PATH

Other paths:

- If we skip straight to [traefik](proxy), then we wouldn't need Node,js/NPM at all.


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## Extend your learning

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Next: [](#starting-the-hub)