macOS 10.11 download failures using "system" python 2.7.10

[jadeallenx]

Ran into this today, when I was trying to update pythonz - if you're using the Apple-shipped python 2.7.10, the SSL libraries linked here don't support TLS 1.2 so github (and a lot of other HTTPS sites are refusing traffic.)

See this post on the python.org blog for more details

Python 2.7.10 (default, Oct 23 2015, 19:19:21) 
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 7.0.0 (clang-700.0.59.5)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from urllib import urlretrieve
>>> urlretrieve("https://github.com/saghul/pythonz/archive/master.tar.gz", "/tmp/test.tgz")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 98, in urlretrieve
    return opener.retrieve(url, filename, reporthook, data)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 245, in retrieve
    fp = self.open(url, data)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 213, in open
    return getattr(self, name)(url)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 443, in open_https
    h.endheaders(data)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 1049, in endheaders
    self._send_output(message_body)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 893, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 855, in send
    self.connect()
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 1274, in connect
    server_hostname=server_hostname)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/ssl.py", line 352, in wrap_socket
    _context=self)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/ssl.py", line 579, in __init__
    self.do_handshake()
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/ssl.py", line 808, in do_handshake
    self._sslobj.do_handshake()
IOError: [Errno socket error] [SSL: TLSV1_ALERT_PROTOCOL_VERSION] tlsv1 alert protocol version (_ssl.c:590)
>>> from urllib2 import urlopen
>>> req = urlopen("https://www.howsmyssl.com/a/check")
>>> import json
>>> resp = json.loads(req.readline())
>>> resp['tls_version']
"TLS 1.0"

So what can you do?

1. Upgrade your mac OS installation
2. Install python2 or 3 using homebrew and make sure it comes in your path before the system python
3. Modify $HOME/.pythonz/bin/pythonz to explicitly call a newer python than whatever shows up first in your path. (This is what I did.)

As far as I can tell those are your only viable options. This isn't a "pythonz" issue per se, but it will stop pythonz from working correctly.

[lgw4]

Shamefully, Apple insists on delivering a woefully outdated Python 2.7. As a software engineer who writes Python every day, I've quit relying on Apple's Python for anything. However, I'll submit a documentation change to bring this to the attention of macOS users so other folks don't discover this problem the hard way.

[jadeallenx]

Thanks!