SSL backend error when using OpenSSL

Question

I was trying to install pycurl in a virtualenv using pip and I got this error

ImportError: pycurl: libcurl link-time ssl backend (openssl) is different from compile-time ssl backend (none/other)

I read some documentation saying that "To fix this, you need to tell setup.py what SSL backend is used" (source) although I am not sure how to do this since I installed pycurl using pip.

How can I specify the SSL backend when installing pycurl with pip?

Thanks

Answer 1

After reading their INSTALLATION file, I was able to solve my problem by setting an environment variable and did a reinstall

• remove existing pycurl installation

  pip uninstall pycurl

• export variable with your link-time ssl backend (which is openssl above)

  export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=openssl

• then, re-install pycurl with no cache

  pip install pycurl --no-cache-dir

There could be other solution out there but this works perfectly for me on a virtualenv and pip installation.

Answer 2

helloworld2013's answer is correct, but the key is matching the SSL library that pycurl is expecting. The error will be something like:

pycurl: libcurl link-time ssl backend (<library>) is different from compile-time ssl backend (<library> or "none/other")

To fix it, you have to use the library pycurl is expecting. In my case, my error was "pycurl: libcurl link-time ssl backend (nss) is different from compile-time ssl backend (openssl)", so my fix was:

pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=nss
pip install pycurl

Answer 3

With OSX 10.13, a brew-installed openSSL, and virtualenv, I was successful with:

workon ..your-environment-here..
pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=openssl
export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib;export CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include;pip install pycurl --compile --no-cache-dir

Answer 4

With pip 7.1 you can put the following in your requirements file:

pycurl==7.19.5.1 --global-option="--with-nss"

Simply replace nss with the relevant ssl backend library.

Answer 5

This worked for me:

pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=nss
easy_install pycurl

None of this worked for me (note the difference is simply easy_install vs pip):

pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=[nss|openssl|ssl|gnutls]
pip install pycurl
#xor
curl -O https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pycurl/pycurl-7.19.3.1.tar.gz
#...
python setup.py --with-[nss|openssl|ssl|gnutls] install

Answer 6

The method to fix the pycurl after Mac OS High Sierra update:

1. Reinstall the curl libraries to use OpenSSL instead of SecureTransport

   brew install curl --with-openssl
   

2. Install pycurl with correct build-time environment and paths

   export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=openssl
   pip uninstall pycurl 
   pip install --no-cache-dir --global-option=build_ext --global-option="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib" --global-option="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include" --user pycurl
   

Answer 7

I had this problem for days. Finally with the help of other answers here (mainly Alexander Tyapkov's) I got it working for AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

Manual install (connecting with SSH):

sudo pip uninstall pycurl
curl -O https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pycurl/pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz
sudo pip install pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz --global-option="--with-nss"

IMPORTANT: Please note that you have to make sure you are using the currect version of Python and PIP, otherwise you might be compiling it for Python 2.x and using v3.x.

Auto-install in Elastic Beanstalk:

files:
  "/usr/local/share/pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz" :
    mode: "000644"
    owner: root
    group: root
    source: https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pycurl/pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz

commands:
  01_download_pip3:
    # run this before PIP installs requirements as it needs to be compiled with OpenSSL
    command: 'curl -O https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py'
  02_install_pip3:
    # run this before PIP installs requirements as it needs to be compiled with OpenSSL
    command: 'python3 get-pip.py'
  03_pycurl_uninstall:
    # run this before PIP installs requirements as it needs to be compiled with OpenSSL
    command: '/usr/bin/yes | sudo pip uninstall pycurl'
  04_pycurl_download:
    # run this before PIP installs requirements as it needs to be compiled with OpenSSL
    command: 'curl -O https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pycurl/pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz'
  05_pycurl_reinstall:
    # run this before PIP installs requirements as it needs to be compiled with OpenSSL
    command: 'sudo pip install pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz --global-option="--with-nss"'

container_commands:
  09_pycurl_reinstall:
    # run this before PIP installs requirements as it needs to be compiled with OpenSSL
    # the upgrade option is because it will run after PIP installs the requirements.txt file.
    # and it needs to be done with the virtual-env activated
    command: 'source /opt/python/run/venv/bin/activate && pip3 install /usr/local/share/pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz --global-option="--with-nss" --upgrade'

I had this problem because I was trying to configure Celery 4 with Django 1.10 in Elastic Beanstalk. If that's your case, I wrote a full blog post about it.

Answer 8

I'm on CentOS 7. I tried all of the above and couldn't get anything to work. It turns out I needed to run these as a root user. So if you're having trouble, try any of the above solutions as a root user. As an example, here is what worked for me:

su -
pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=[nss|openssl|ssl|gnutls]
pip install pycurl

Of course, all the usual disclaimers about running as a root user apply.

Note: [nss|openssl|ssl|gnutls] in the code above means to pick one, and don't include the square brackets or pipes. The person who asked the original question would have chosen openssl. In my particular case, I chose nss. Your error message should tell you which choice to make.

Answer 9

You can download the tar.gz file from here. Then extract it into a folder. You'll find a setup.py file there. Run the command over there that the site mentioned. For example:

python setup.py --with-[ssl|gnutls|nss] install

FYI: I tried to install pycurl at my windows, but I couldn't. But did it on my linux.

Answer 10

I am running this on OS X and some of the above solutions weren't working. Similar to Edward Newell's comment the PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY variable seemed to have been completely ignored.
Further reading of the PycURL installation doc revealed the following:

pip may reinstall the package it has previously compiled instead of recompiling pycurl with newly specified options

Therefore, I had to force it to compile with:

pip install --compile pycurl

That works on a number of cases. However, I did run into a few systems that continued to ignore the variable so, similar to maharg101's answer, I resorted to the install options which through pip can be set like this:

pip install pycurl --global-option="--with-[ssl|gnutls|nss]"

where you select one of the three options inside the square brackets. Notice that the available option is ssl and not openssl. If you specify --with-openssl you'll get an error. Also note that if you were messing around with the PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY variable and switching it to funky values to see what would happen this last command will definitely catch it and throw an error if the value is set but not valid.

Answer 11

Reinstallation of curl

I tried every suggestion from this discussion but no one worked for me. As solution I have reinstalled curl and curlib. After that I was able to install pycurl with ssl support inside environment.

At start:

'PycURL/7.43.0 libcurl/7.47.0 GnuTLS/3.4.10 zlib/1.2.8 libidn/1.32 librtmp/2.3'

Part 1.Re/Installation with pip

Firstly I have removed pycurl from virtualenv using pip as was suggested previous answers:

pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=openssl
pip install pycurl --global-option="--with-openssl"

The idea here is that package was cached and we just reintstall it with openssl option.

I also tried to recompile pycurl with pip using:

pip install pycurl --compile pycurl --no-cache

..but had the same error after running:

python
import pycurl
pycurl.version

ImportError: pycurl: libcurl link-time ssl backend (gnutls) is different from compile-time ssl backend (openssl)

Part 2. Installation from tar

After previous method didn't work I have decidede to install pycurl from tar with:

curl -O https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pycurl/pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzvf pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz
cd pycurl-7.43.0/
sudo python setup.py --with-ssl install

It has installed pycurl globally but not within virtualenv. I also didn't check if it was installed with SSL support or not but think that still without ssl.

Part 3. Reinstallation of curl and curllib

Finally I understood that pycurl doesn't installs normally into environment because global curl and libcurl are compiled with gnutls.

Before starting check it with:

curl-config --configure

One of the output lines will be

'--without-ssl' '--with-gnutls'

To recompile it:

Firstly remove curl:

sudo apt-get purge curl

Install any build dependencies needed for curl

sudo apt-get build-dep curl

Get latest (as of Dec 20, 2016) libcurl

mkdir ~/curl
wget http://curl.haxx.se/download/curl-7.51.0.tar.bz2
tar -xvjf curl-7.51.0.tar.bz2
cd curl-7.51.0

The usual steps for building an app from source

./configure
./make
 sudo make install

If openssl installed correctly then configure will find it automatically. The output will be:

curl version: 7.51.0
Host setup: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Install prefix: /usr/local
Compiler: gcc
SSL support: enabled (OpenSSL) ...

Resolve any issues of C-level lib location caches ("shared library cache")

sudo ldconfig

Now try to reinstall pycurl within environment:

curl -O https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pycurl/pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz
pip install pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz --global-option="--with-openssl"

The result should be:

python
import pycurl
pycurl.version

'PycURL/7.43.0 libcurl/7.51.0 OpenSSL/1.0.2g zlib/1.2.8 librtmp/2.3'

Answer 12

This worked for me:

pip install --compile --install-option="--with-openssl" pycurl

Answer 13

I tried everything here on macOS 10.13 with no success. Then I found https://gist.github.com/webinista/b4b6a4cf8f158431b2c5134630c2cbfe which worked:

brew install curl --with-openssl
pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=openssl
export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib;export CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include; pip install pycurl --compile --no-cache-dir

This worked for me both when not using a virtualenv and within a virtualenv.

Answer 14

For anyone having problem inside PyCharm CE on macOS Mojave this is how i got it working in venv:

• specify version: 7.43.0.1
• Options: --install-option=--with-openssl --install-option=--openssl-dir=/usr/local/opt/openssl

Answer 15

Not sure if this is because of running in a virtualenv, but on CentOS 7 these solutions weren't working for me; the compiled objects were still being grabbed from the cache dir when I was reinstalling. If you're running into the same problem after trying other solutions here, try the following:

pip uninstall pycurl
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=[nss|openssl|ssl|gnutls]
pip install pycurl --no-cache-dir

Answer 16

Error:

ImportError: pycurl: libcurl link-time ssl backend (openssl) is different from compile-time ssl backend (none/other)

This worked for me, Mac 10.13, python 3.5, pycurl import worked after installing like this

pip3 uninstall pycurl;

pip3 install --compile --install-option="--with-openssl" pycurl

Answer 17

After being stuck on this for a long time, I found out that apple stopped including OpenSSL headers since OS X 10.11 El Capitan. how to fix?

1) brew install openssl

2) echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile (or .zshrc for zsh, etc)

3) pip uninstall pycurl

4) pip install --install-option="--with-openssl" --install-option="--openssl-dir=/usr/local/opt/openssl" pycurl

Answer 18

For python 2.7

sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev

For python 3.5 also install the next:

sudo apt-get install python3.5-dev

Download the latest pycurl-7.43.0.tar.gz (md5) Source from pypi https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pycurl/7.43.0#downloads and run the next command:

python setup.py --with-openssl install

Also you can do it into python environment:

(test_env)user@pc:~/Downloads/pycurl-7.43.0$ python setup.py --with-openssl install

Answer 19

pip install -U pip

if [ "$(curl --version | grep NSS 2>/dev/null)" ]; then
    pip install --compile --install-option="--with-nss" pycurl
else
    pip install --compile --install-option="--with-openssl" pycurl
fi

Answer 20

I encountered this problem and Sanket Jagtap's answer worked for me. I tried the answer with the most votes answer but it did not work.

My openssl old version is 1.0.1t, I think reinstalling openssl may solve this problem.

--- pycurl's openssl backend time....

I rebuilt the latest openssl and tried this answer. Check this out.

pip install --compile --install-option="--with-openssl" pycurl

This worked for me.

i recommend we should reinstall our openssl for try..

Answer 21

Following worked for me with Python3.6

MacOS High-Sierra

sudo pip3 uninstall pycurl
sudo pip3 install --compile --install-option="--with-openssl" pycurl 

CentOS 7

sudo pip3 uninstall pycurl
sudo pip3 install --compile --install-option="--with-nss" pycurl

Answer 22

This link sums up the reason why the errors occur and gives a clear instruction to fix the problem.

https://cscheng.info/2018/01/26/installing-pycurl-on-macos-high-sierra.html

For me, the problem occurred when I upgraded to High-Sierra from El Captain.

Answer 23

export CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include
export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib

pip install pycurl --global-option="--with-openssl"