Thonny Requiremnt for the paramiko package

[Paul Naish]

I have a PI ZERO W I would like to connect to from a P400 using Thonny with the Interpreter set to 'Remote Python 3 (SSH)'. After I entered the credentials and click OK, the Shell applet in the Thonny screen displays

This back-end requires an extra package named 'paramiko'. Install it from 'Tools => Manage plug-ins' or via your system package manager.

Process ended with exit code 1.

I installed the paramiko package straight using PIP which seemed to fail and corrupt the packages. When I performed  simple test import of paramiko, Python crashed with 'Illegal instruction'. I also got the same error for any PIP operation.

Running Python in verbose (-v) mode, I found the offending package was a dependency called bcrypt. I manually removed bcrypt then was able to remove parmiko using pip uninstall.

I then found the installation instructions for paramiko which suggests the dependencies need to be manually installed first.

I would like to run the PI ZERO W headless which means remote access from Thonny on another platform would be advantegous.

Before I try the installation of paramiko again, can some confirm it needs to be installed on the ZERO and not P400 where Thonny is running?

Thanks

[Paul Naish]

It seems paramiko cannot be installed on a ZERO W because the dependency package bcrypt shows the 'illegal instruction'. This means you cannot use Thonny remote to a headless ZERO W. Thonny remote to a PICO W with micropython does work as I've been using that extensively.

I manually installed bcrypt including using the recommended prerequisite 'sudo apt-get install build-essential cargo'. When  I did a simple test 'import bcrypt, Python3 aborted with 'illegal instruction'.

I opened a bcrypt bug report on this.

[Paul Naish]

This is getting more curious.

I realized I had other Thonny installations I could try this from. The following allowed me to access the ZERO W for using remote Python 3 (SSH).

• Thonny 3.3.13 on a Windows 10 PC
  
• Thonny 4.0.1 on a Raspberry 3B

I reinstalled Thonny 4.0.1 using 'apt purge' on the P400 but always got the same error of the requirement for paramiko

I finally purged Thonny 4.0.1 and installed 4.0.2 using the bash script from the download page. This worked.

So, with 4.0.2 I can develop ZERO W Python apps from my P400 which I am glad of.