While you can’t turn a macOS system in an AlgoVPN, you can install the Algo scripts on a macOS system and use them to deploy your AlgoVPN to a cloud provider.
Algo uses Ansible which requires Python 3. macOS includes an obsolete version of Python 2 installed as /usr/bin/python which you should ignore.
Catalina comes with Python 3 installed as /usr/bin/python3. This file, and certain others like /usr/bin/git, start out as stub files that prompt you to install the Command Line Developer Tools package the first time you run them. This is the easiest way to install Python 3 on Catalina.
Note that Python 3 from Command Line Developer Tools prior to the release for Xcode 11.5 on 2020-05-20 might not work with Algo. If Software Update does not offer to update an older version of the tools you can download a newer version from here (Apple ID login required).
You’ll need to install Python 3 before you can run Algo. Python 3 is available from different packagers, two of which are listed below.
Ansible validates SSL network connections using OpenSSL but macOS includes LibreSSL which behaves differently. Therefore each version of Python below includes or depends on its own copy of OpenSSL.
OpenSSL needs access to a list of trusted CA certificates in order to validate SSL connections. Each packager handles initializing this certificate store differently. If you see the error CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED when running Algo make sure you’ve followed the packager-specific instructions correctly.
Choose one of the packagers below as your source for Python 3. Avoid installing versions from multiple packagers on the same Mac as you may encounter conflicts. In particular they might fight over creating symbolic links in /usr/local/bin.
If you’re comfortable using the command line in Terminal the Homebrew project is a great source of software for macOS.
First install Homebrew using the instructions on the Homebrew page.
The install command below takes care of initializing the CA certificate store.
brew install python3
After installation open a new tab or window in Terminal and verify that the command which python3 returns /usr/local/bin/python3.
brew uninstall python3
If you don’t want to install a package manager you can download the Python package for macOS from python.org.
Download the most recent version of Python and install it like any other macOS package. Then initialize the CA certificate store from Finder by double-clicking on the file Install Certificates.command found in the /Applications/Python 3.8 folder.
When you double-click on Install Certificates.command a new Terminal window will open. If the window remains blank then the command has not run correctly. This can happen if you’ve changed the default shell in Terminal Preferences. Try changing it back to the default and run Install Certificates.command again.
After installation open a new tab or window in Terminal and verify that the command which python3 returns either /usr/local/bin/python3 or /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/bin/python3.
Unfortunately the python.org package does not include an uninstaller and removing it requires several steps:
/Applications.PATH by running:
mv ~/.bash_profile.pysave ~/.bash_profile/usr/local/bin. Or just leave them because installing another version of Python will overwrite most of them.