diff --git a/pkgs/development/python-modules/pyrax.nix b/pkgs/development/python-modules/pyrax.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..b0fc29d3cc94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/python-modules/pyrax.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+{ lib, buildPythonPackage, fetchurl, requests2, novaclient, keyring,
+  rackspace-novaclient, six, isPy3k }:
+buildPythonPackage rec {
+  name = "pyrax-1.9.8";
+
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = "mirror://pypi/p/pyrax/${name}.tar.gz";
+    sha256 = "1x98jzyxnvha81pgx3jpfixljhs7zik89yfp8q06kwpx8ws99nz9";
+  };
+
+  # no good reason given in commit why limited, and seems to work
+  patchPhase = ''
+      substituteInPlace "setup.py"                                     \
+              --replace "python-novaclient==2.27.0" "python-novaclient"
+    '';
+
+  disabled = isPy3k;
+  propagatedBuildInputs = [ requests2 novaclient keyring rackspace-novaclient six ];
+
+  meta = {
+    homepage = "https://github.com/rackspace/pyrax";
+    license = lib.licenses.asl20;
+    description = "Python API to interface with Rackspace";
+    maintainers = with lib.maintainers; [ teh ];
+  };
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
index 1ab5ebac01bd..5559b0547a0e 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
@@ -21556,25 +21556,7 @@ in {
 
   rackspace-novaclient = callPackage ../development/python-modules/rackspace-novaclient.nix { };
 
-  pyrax = buildPythonPackage rec {
-    name = "pyrax-1.8.2";
-
-    src = pkgs.fetchurl {
-      url = "mirror://pypi/p/pyrax/${name}.tar.gz";
-      sha256 = "0hvim60bhgfj91m7pp8jfmb49f087xqlgkqa505zw28r7yl0hcfp";
-    };
-
-    propagatedBuildInputs = with self; [ requests2 ];
-    doCheck = false;
-
-    meta = {
-      broken = true;  # missing lots of dependencies with rackspace-novaclient
-      homepage    = "https://github.com/rackspace/pyrax";
-      license     = licenses.mit;
-      description = "Python API to interface with Rackspace";
-    };
-  };
-
+  pyrax = callPackage ../development/python-modules/pyrax.nix { };
 
   pyreport = buildPythonPackage (rec {
     name = "pyreport-0.3.4c";