title: Upgrading Python on RHEL 7
body: <p><strong><em>TL;DR How do I get Python 2.7.9+ on RHEL 7?</em></strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm using Ansible for configuration management of a RHEL 7 server. I've run into a number of cases where an Ansible module (or whatever action it was trying to perform) requires Python 2.7.9+, but RHEL 7 (tested on 7.1 and 7.3) only come with Python 2.7.5. I see a few options:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong>Installing through a different package repository.</strong> I was looking around for an easy way to upgrade though <code>yum</code>, but couldn't find one. Is there a repository that has Python 2.7.9+?
  
  <ul>
  <li>Sub-question: Is there a site to search for a given version of a given package, and then find out what repository(s) it exists in?</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><strong>Installing Python 2.7.9+ from source.</strong> I tried to do this, but I apparently couldn't get the compilation to pick up system libraries like zlib, so a bunch of the Ansible modules ended up failing when using it as the <code>ansible_python_interpreter</code>. Possible that I could spend more time and get that working.</li>
  <li><strong>Use Python 3.</strong> Ansible has <a href="https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/python_3_support.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">experimental Python 3 support</a>, but I'm worried about the unknown stability of this.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Any advice on the easiest path forward? I'm relatively new to system administration, so very possible there's a straightforward solution I'm missing. Thanks!</p>