Python import paramiko error "cannot import name util"

Question

I have installed the paramiko module. However, when I tried to import that module. I got the following error.

import paramiko
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ImportError                               Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-42-e77d47aa6e4a> in <module>()
----> 1 import paramiko

C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\paramiko\__init__.py in <module>()
     28 
     29 
---> 30 from paramiko.transport import SecurityOptions, Transport
     31 from paramiko.client import SSHClient, MissingHostKeyPolicy, AutoAddPolicy, RejectPolicy, WarningPolicy
     32 from paramiko.auth_handler import AuthHandler

C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\paramiko\transport.py in <module>()
     30 
     31 import paramiko
---> 32 from paramiko import util
     33 from paramiko.auth_handler import AuthHandler
     34 from paramiko.ssh_gss import GSSAuth

ImportError: cannot import name util

Does anyone know how to resolve this issue?

Answer 1

I have just had the same issue myself (python 2.7.6), and ran into this answer here ImportError: Cannot import name X , which was referred in the question's comments, suggesting it's a circular dependency issue.

After not finding any elegant solution I found myself editing paramiko's source code in site-packages/paramiko/transport.py:

• Comment / remove the line from paramiko import util
• Replace every occurrence of util (in this file) to paramiko.util
• Be careful while replacing: DO NOT replace existing occurrences of paramiko.util

This had fixed the problem for me, leaving me somewhat confused: on the one hand, modifying the import method seems to solve this, but on the other hand Python deals with it in like... 99% of the cases..? Awkward.