Using virtualenv

virtualenv is a tool to create isolated Python environments. See https://virtualenv.pypa.io/en/latest/index.html

Setting up virtualenv on the cod-nodes/abel

module load python2
virtualenv my_python_dir

will create locally a python tree.

Then you can run

cd my_python_dir
./bin/activate

And you're ready to go.
This will help to set paths properly:

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$PWD/lib/python2.7/site-packages/

When using setup.py scripts

python setup.py install --prefix=/path/to/my_python_dir

Then to install a package not already in the python2 module do:

pip install package_name

This package (if found by pip) will be installed locally and reachable via the paths previously set up.