The Problem Development and test clusters may be air-gapped so that client data or sensitive software under development is less likely to be leaked. This can cause problems when trying to install libraries, e.g. for Python-based software, especially if the cluster has an old version of a Linux OS installed. The Solution Setup Python's pip on the remote machine On an Internet-enabled machine, download the Wheel file for pip from https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip , such as pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl. Copy the Wheel file (e.g. pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl) to the remote machine, e.g. using scp: scp pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl user@host:/path On the remote machine: python pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip install --no-index pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl pip --version # this should display the version number if correctly installed Download the required libraries On an Internet-enabled machine, download the library and its dependencies using the fol