diff --git a/manifests/init.pp b/manifests/init.pp
index 3685700..50e45f5 100644
--- a/manifests/init.pp
+++ b/manifests/init.pp
@@ -37,10 +37,20 @@ class subunit2sql (
     require  => Class['pip'],
   }
 
-  package { 'subunit2sql':
-    ensure   => latest,
-    provider => openstack_pip,
-    require  => [
+  exec { 'install-subunit2sql-safely':
+    command => '/usr/bin/pip install --upgrade --upgrade-strategy=only-if-needed subunit2sql',
+    # This checks the current installed subunit2sql version with pip list and
+    # the latest version of subunit2sql on pypi with pip search and if they are
+    # different then we know we need to upgrade to reconcile the local version
+    # with the upstream version.
+    #
+    # We do this using this check here rather than a pip package resource so we
+    # can override pip's default upgrade strategy in order to avoid replacing
+    # deps we've preinstalled from system packages because they lack wheels on
+    # PyPI and must be otherwise rebuilt from sdist instead (specifically
+    # netifaces).
+    onlyif  => '/bin/bash -c "test $(/usr/bin/pip list --format columns | sed -ne \'s/^subunit2sql\s\+\(.*\)$/\1/p\') != $(/usr/bin/pip search \'subunit2sql$\' | sed -ne \'s/^subunit2sql (\(.*\)).*$/\1/p\')"',
+    require => [
       Class['pip'],
       Package['python-mysqldb'],
       Package['python-psycopg2'],
@@ -107,7 +117,7 @@ class subunit2sql (
       Package['python-zmq'],
       Package['python-yaml'],
       Package['gear'],
-      Package['subunit2sql'],
+      Exec['install-subunit2sql-safely'],
       Package['python-subunit'],
       Package['testtools']
     ],
diff --git a/manifests/server.pp b/manifests/server.pp
index b418636..2916ccf 100644
--- a/manifests/server.pp
+++ b/manifests/server.pp
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ class subunit2sql::server (
   exec { 'upgrade_subunit2sql_db':
     command     => '/usr/local/bin/run_migrations.sh',
     require     => File['/usr/local/bin/run_migrations.sh'],
-    subscribe   => Package['subunit2sql'],
+    subscribe   => Exec['install-subunit2sql-safely'],
     refreshonly => true,
     timeout     => 0,
   }
diff --git a/manifests/worker.pp b/manifests/worker.pp
index 96b4bb9..c700daa 100644
--- a/manifests/worker.pp
+++ b/manifests/worker.pp
@@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ if ! defined(File['/var/log/subunit2sql']) {
     hasrestart => true,
     subscribe  => [
       File["/etc/subunit2sql/jenkins-subunit-worker${suffix}.yaml"],
-      Package['subunit2sql'],
+      Exec['install-subunit2sql-safely'],
     ],
     require    => [
       File['/etc/subunit2sql'],