Facing issue "virtualenv: error: argument --setuptools: expected one argument" when running jertel/elastalert

Question

I've been trying to run the jertel/elastalert repo. The config.yaml and rules.yaml have both been set up to point at our environment. The only other change has been in setup.py where we changed elasticsearch==7.0.0 to 7.6.0

When I'm building the docker container though, I get stonewalled by this error.

actionid=py36
msg=getenv
cmdargs=['/usr/bin/python3', '-m', 'virtualenv', '--setuptools', '--python', '/usr/bin/python3', 'py36']
env={'PATH': '/home/elastalert/.tox/py36/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin', 'HOSTNAME': '5a4717e36a0c', 'HOME': '/root', 'PYTHONHASHSEED': '3507335408', 'VIRTUAL_ENV': '/home/elastalert/.tox/py36'}
SystemExit: 2
usage: virtualenv [--version] [--with-traceback] [-v | -q] [--read-only-app-data] [--app-data APP_DATA] [--reset-app-data] [--upgrade-embed-wheels] [--discovery {builtin}] [-p py] [--creator {builtin,cpython3-posix,venv}]
                  [--seeder {app-data,pip}] [--no-seed] [--activators comma_sep_list] [--clear] [--no-vcs-ignore] [--system-site-packages] [--symlinks | --copies] [--no-download | --download] [--extra-search-dir d [d ...]] [--pip version]
                  [--setuptools version] [--wheel version] [--no-pip] [--no-setuptools] [--no-wheel] [--no-periodic-update] [--symlink-app-data] [--prompt prompt] [-h]
                  dest
virtualenv: error: argument --setuptools: expected one argument 

Does anyone have insight as to what argument vitrualenv is wanting? I'm not even sure why virtualenv is needed or being used here.

Thank you for the help!

Answer 1

The --setuptools option is a very old one and is no longer necessary for calling virtualenv (it has been the default for at least 5 years)

In virtualenv 20.x, the --setuptools option came back but with a different shape -- it now determines what version to bootstrap and whether to use the embedded setuptools version

You can safely remove that argument from the call -- in your case you can probably do this by upgrading tox

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disclaimer: I'm one of the tox core maintainers and I also work closely with the virtualenv maintainer