========== Installing

.. note:: These instructions cover Paramiko 2.0 and above. If you're looking to install Paramiko 1.x, see :doc:installing-1.x. However, the 1.x line relies on insecure dependencies so upgrading is strongly encouraged.

.. _paramiko-itself:

Paramiko itself

The recommended way to get Paramiko is to install the latest stable release via pip <http://pip-installer.org>_::

$ pip install paramiko

Paramiko has only a few direct dependencies:

The big one, with its own sub-dependencies, is Cryptography; see :ref:its specific note below <cryptography> for more details;
bcrypt <https://pypi.org/project/bcrypt/>_ and pynacl <https://pypi.org/project/PyNaCl/>_ for Ed25519 key support.

There are also a handful of optional dependencies you may install using setuptools 'extras' <https://packaging.python.org/tutorials/installing-packages/#installing-setuptools-extras>_:

For GSS-API / SSPI support, use paramiko[gssapi], though also see :ref:the below subsection on it <gssapi> for details.

.. _release-lines:

Release lines

Users desiring stability may wish to pin themselves to a specific release line once they first start using Paramiko; to assist in this, we guarantee bugfixes for the last 2-3 releases including the latest stable one.

This typically spans major & minor versions, so even if e.g. 3.1 is the latest stable release, it's likely that bugfixes will occasionally come out for the latest 2.x and perhaps even 1.x releases, as well as for 3.0. New feature releases for previous major-version lines are less likely but not unheard of.

If you're unsure which version to install:

Completely new users should always default to the latest stable release (as above, whatever is newest / whatever shows up with pip install paramiko.)
Users upgrading from a much older version (e.g. 1.7.x through 1.10.x) should probably get the oldest actively supported line (check the :doc:changelog for recent releases).
Everybody else is hopefully already "on" a given version and can carefully upgrade to whichever version they care to, when their release line stops being supported.

.. _cryptography:

Cryptography

Cryptography <https://cryptography.io>__ provides the low-level (C-based) encryption algorithms we need to implement the SSH protocol. It has detailed installation instructions_ (and an FAQ <https://cryptography.io/en/latest/faq/>_) which you should read carefully.

In general, you'll need one of the following setups:

On Windows or Mac OS X, provided your pip is modern (8.x+): nothing else is required. pip will install statically compiled binary archives of Cryptography & its dependencies.
On Linux, or on other platforms with older versions of pip: you'll need a C build toolchain, plus development headers for Python, OpenSSL and libffi. Again, see Cryptography's install docs_; these requirements may occasionally change.

.. warning:: If you go this route, note that OpenSSL 1.0.1 or newer is effectively required. Cryptography 1.3 and older technically allow OpenSSL 0.9.8, but 1.4 and newer - which Paramiko will gladly install or upgrade, if you e.g. pip install -U - drop that support.
Similarly, Cryptography 3.4 and above require Rust language tooling to install from source; once again see Cryptography's documentation for details here, such as their Rust install section_ and this FAQ entry_.

.. _installation instructions: .. _Cryptography's install docs: https://cryptography.io/en/latest/installation.html .. _their Rust install section: https://cryptography.io/en/latest/installation.html#rust .. _this FAQ entry: https://cryptography.io/en/latest/faq.html#installing-cryptography-fails-with-error-can-not-find-rust-compiler

.. _gssapi:

Optional dependencies for GSS-API / SSPI / Kerberos

In order to use GSS-API/Kerberos & related functionality, additional dependencies are required. It hopefully goes without saying but all platforms need a working installation of GSS-API itself, e.g. Heimdal.

.. note:: If you use Microsoft SSPI for kerberos authentication and credential delegation, make sure that the target host is trusted for delegation in the active directory configuration. For details see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc738491%28v=ws.10%29.aspx

The `gssapi` "extra" install flavor

If you're installing via pip (recommended), you should be able to get the optional Python package requirements by changing your installation to refer to paramiko[gssapi] (from simply paramiko), e.g.::

pip install "paramiko[gssapi]"

(Or update your requirements.txt, or etc.)

.. TODO: just axe this once legacy gssapi support is gone, no point reiterating

Manual dependency installation

If you're not using pip or your pip is too old to support the "extras" functionality, the optional dependencies are as follows:

All platforms need pyasn1 <https://pypi.org/project/pyasn1/>_ 0.1.7 or later.
Unix needs: gssapi <https://pypi.org/project/gssapi/>__ 1.4.1 or better.
- An alternative is the python-gssapi <https://pypi.org/project/python-gssapi/>_ library (0.6.1 or above), though it is no longer maintained upstream, and Paramiko's support for its API may eventually become deprecated.
Windows needs pywin32 <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pywin32>_ 2.1.8 or better.

Installing