Python3.10 source build on CentOS 7.6

The above posts were very helpful to guide me to my solution. I want to share in case someone else could use this:

First the development libs

1. sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools" -y
2. sudo yum install openssl11-devel libffi-devel bzip2-devel xz-devel -y
   • for static linking use openssl11-static

Then configure

So for some reason CentOS ships openssl1.1.1 but it is installed in a way that doesn't jive with Python's configure script.

# note that we #include <openssl/foo.h>, so the OpenSSL headers have to be in
    # an 'openssl' subdirectory

    if ! $found; then
        OPENSSL_INCLUDES=
        for ssldir in $ssldirs; do
            { $as_echo "$as_me:${as_lineno-$LINENO}: checking for openssl/ssl.h in $ssldir" >&5
$as_echo_n "checking for openssl/ssl.h in $ssldir... " >&6; }
            if test -f "$ssldir/include/openssl/ssl.h"; then
                OPENSSL_INCLUDES="-I$ssldir/include"
                OPENSSL_LDFLAGS="-L$ssldir/lib"
                OPENSSL_LIBS="-lssl -lcrypto"

Since Python is including headers a subfolder is desired: $ssldir/include/openssl/ssl.h

I just created a new folder with the correct layout:

/opt/openssl111/
├── include
│   └── openssl
│       └── *.h
└── lib
    ├── libcrypto.so
    └── libssl.so

Once in place, the trifecta:

1. ./configure --enable-optimizations --with-lto --with-openssl=/opt/openssl111/
   • lto is link time optimization
2. make -j8
3. make altinstall (installs in /usr/local/ not to overwrite system python)

You can safely install Python as a Local / Non-root user by executing the below code with the required Python Version defined in the variable "PYTHON_VER"

Note: This installs Python in your $HOME directory. You can modify the PATH if needed for a different installation location.

# Install Python3 and Libraries as a local user. 
python_config() {
    export PYTHON_VER="3.12.4" 
    export PYTHON_VER_SHORT="$(echo ${PYTHON_VER} | cut -d '.' -f1,2)"
    export PYTHON_REQ="/tmp/requirements.txt"
    cd ~ 
    rm -rf ~/python && mkdir -p ~/python 
    echo "" >> ~/.bashrc 
    echo "export PATH=~/python/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.bashrc 
    source ~/.bashrc 
    wget --quiet --no-check-certificate "https://www.python.org/ftp/python/${PYTHON_VER}/Python-${PYTHON_VER}.tgz" 
    tar -zxvf ~/Python-${PYTHON_VER}.tgz 1>/dev/null 
    cd ~/Python-${PYTHON_VER}/ 
    echo "Python ${PYTHON_VER} - Installing in current logged-in user - $(whoami)" 
    echo "Python ${PYTHON_VER} - Installation in-progress. Please wait..." 
    ./configure --enable-optimizations --prefix=$HOME/python > /dev/null 2>&1; 
    echo "Python ${PYTHON_VER} - ETA: upto 5mins. Please wait..." 
    make altinstall > /dev/null 2>&1; 
    ln -s ~/python/bin/python${PYTHON_VER_SHORT} ~/python/bin/python3 
    ln -s ~/python/bin/pip${PYTHON_VER_SHORT} ~/python/bin/pip3 
     

    # Install PIP3
    wget --quiet --no-check-certificate https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -O - | python3 - --prefix=$HOME/python
    source ~/.bashrc
    ~/python/bin/pip3 install --upgrade pip 
    ~/python/bin/pip3 install --upgrade --no-cache-dir -r ${PYTHON_REQ} --use-pep517 
    cd ~ && rm -rf ~/Python-${PYTHON_VER}*


    ~/python/bin/python3 --version 
    ~/python/bin/pip3 --version 
    echo "Python ${PYTHON_VER} - Setup Completed!" 
}

# Function Call
python_config