Python 2.6 support removed

Issuance Tech
1

Seems Letsencrypt client will have Python 2.6 support removed for launch https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt/pull/630 and https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt/commit/d55c3e64c02ece84d3bb490be400a82e2069fc9b

@schoen I’d definitely make a clear note in FAQ and documentation as some folks may run into issues i.e. CentOS 6.x defaults to Python 2.6 out of the box. While CentOS 7.x defaults to Python 2.7.x.

For CentOS 6.x folks they’d need something like IUS Community YUM repo for side by side install of Python 2.7 https://iuscommunity.org/pages/Repos.html

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2

Is Python 2.6 what’s included in the CentOS 6 distro? Is there a Python 2.7 package available for CentOS 6?

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Yup CentOS 6.x has Python 2.6 system package only. You can install a 3rd party YUM repo like IUS Community https://iuscommunity.org/pages/Repos.html which is backed by folks at Rackspace.com

Once IUS Community YUM repo is installed you can install Python 2.7 via yum

yum -y install python27 python27-devel python27-pip python27-setuptools python27-tools python27-virtualenv --enablerepo=ius

so you can call python 2.7 via python2.7 command

python2.7 --version            
Python 2.7.10

so instead of

virtualenv --no-site-packages -p python2 venv

use

virtualenv --no-site-packages -p python2.7 venv

FYI, IUS Community Repo requires the EPEL YUM Repo installed too.

yum -y install epel-release
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Note that there is currently no code checked in that requires Python 2.7 and there is no specific Python feature that we will necessarily require that is incompatible with 2.6.

We are not sure which versions of Python we will target for launch. I’m going to try to have a CentOS 6 image running tests; if there’s a minor incompatibility with 2.6 then we may still be able to notice it and work around it.

2 Likes
5

Dropping support for 2.6 is smart as there were a lot of bugs in 2.6 that where fixed in 2.7

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A little remark here, RedHat/CentOS does provide a Python 2.7 packageset in their Software Collections (SC)

See here, here, etc. Sometimes a bit convoluted to get it to work, but this way it’s possible to have both versions installed side by side and leave all existing software/scripts using 2.6 unaffected.

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7

indeed it is.. that's why I opted for IUS Community package install above.. it's still a side install so doesn't touch Python 2.6 on CentOS6.x but installs Python 2.7 side by side :slight_smile: