# minimum required version of python?

**URL:** https://community.zeek.org/t/minimum-required-version-of-python/2059
**Category:** Development
**Tags:** development
**Created:** [October 11, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://community.zeek.org/t/minimum-required-version-of-python/2059 "2011-10-11T20:12:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Daniel\_Thayer1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/278dde/32.png) [@Daniel\_Thayer1](https://community.zeek.org/u/Daniel_Thayer1)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://community.zeek.org/t/minimum-required-version-of-python/2059/1 "2011-10-11T20:12:29Z")

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Do we require a minimum version of Python in order to use Bro?

For example, I've noticed various uses of conditional expressions  
(true\_value if condition else false\_value) in the code (this  
feature was introduced in Python 2.5), and since RHEL5 has Python 2.4,  
then Bro (or at least the parts that rely on Python) won't work on RHEL5.

I was able to build Bro on a RHEL5 machine without (apparently)  
any errors, but when I try to run broctl, it fails with this message:

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

The only place where I can see any mention of a minimum required  
version of Python is in the broctl README, where it says Python \>= 2.4  
is required.

-Daniel

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### Author: ![robin](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/community.zeek.org/robin/32/599_2.png) [@robin](https://community.zeek.org/u/robin)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://community.zeek.org/t/minimum-required-version-of-python/2059/2 "2011-10-12T16:09:56Z")

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For BroControl it used to be 2.4 but that's apparently not the case  
anymore if there are 2.5 constructs in there now. If it's easy to  
eliminate things that prevent it from running with 2.4, we could do  
that; but on the other hand I'm tempted to just say we require at  
least 2.6. That's not exactly new anymore, and if people can't find  
packages, it's actually straight-forward to compile from source (I've  
done it many times 🙂

Robin

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### Author: ![Seth\_Hall3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Seth\_Hall3](https://community.zeek.org/u/Seth_Hall3)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://community.zeek.org/t/minimum-required-version-of-python/2059/3 "2011-10-12T16:19:19Z")

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That sounds best to me.

.Seth

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### Author: ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/zeek/original/1X/f09d732bc2cc7c7cc7e35db67cf4e1d5233ce7a7.png) [@system](https://community.zeek.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://community.zeek.org/t/minimum-required-version-of-python/2059/4 "2022-05-06T15:39:53Z")

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