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# Upgrade to 6.x/7.x Releases

This article provides information on how to upgrade to the latest 6.x/7.x releases from old releases such as 4.x and 5.x.

Note

If you have been using PySNMP packages with `-lextudio` postfix, now is the time to remove them and switch to the official PySNMP packages, which are maintained by LeXtudio Inc. as well.

We already deprecated the `-lextudio` packages so users must migrate to the official packages as soon as possible.

## Commercial Support for Migration

Important

LeXtudio Inc. offers commercial support services specifically to help organizations migrate from legacy 4.4.x releases to the latest versions. Professional assistance can significantly reduce migration time, ensure compatibility, and avoid common pitfalls.

If you’re managing critical infrastructure using older PySNMP releases, consider reaching out for expert guidance through the migration process.

For more information on commercial support options, please visit Support Options.

## Upgrade to 5.x Releases

While working on 4.x releases, Ilya actually kept a master branch with some experimental changes and planned to release as 5.0. However, this plan wasn’t finished and irrelevant to what you see today the 5.x releases from other maintainers and their forks.

While various 5.0 releases were published by different maintainers, you only see a single release by LeXtudio Inc., which is 5.1.0, on PyPI for the official PySNMP project.

Important

We only published 5.1.0 release, and we are not planning to publish any more 5.x releases. The 5.1.0 release was published to ensure smooth transition for users who are still using the 4.x releases.

We consider the 5.1.0 release as a stepping stone to the 6.x releases, so please don’t stay with them for long.

You should next attempt to upgrade to 6.0.13 release and see if things work as expected.

Note that you must use Python <3.12, as release 5.1.0 is not compatible with Python 3.12.

Important

Each release has its own end-of-life date, so please check the table on this lifecycle page for more details.

## Upgrade to 6.0 Releases

The 6.0 release is the first major release upgrade by LeXtudio Inc., after the team took over the project and attempted twice internally to modernize the code base. This release introduced the following changes:

- New changes required by Python 3.12 were applied, such as completely free of asyncore.

- Unit test coverage is further improved.

- New sync API based on asyncio is added to enable synchronous I/O operations and easy migration from 4.x/5.0 releases.

- The API surface was adjusted slightly to make it more aligned with other SNMP implementations.

- Upon better time synchronization in 5.0 release, more changes are included in 6.0 release to make the engine fully compliant with RFC3414.

- Documentation is significantly improved to cover the new features and changes.

- Continuous collaboration with downstream projects.

PySMI 1.3 and 1.4 releases introduced some changes that are not fully compatible with PySMI 1.2. So we decided to keep PySNMP 6.0 with PySMI 1.2.

Important

We only published 6.0.13 release, and we are not planning to publish any more 6.0 releases. The 6.0.13 release was published to ensure smooth transition for users who are still using the 4.x/5.x releases.

We consider the 6.0.13 release as a stepping stone to the 6.1 releases, so please don’t stay with them for long.

You should first attempt to upgrade to 6.1.3 release and see if things work as expected.

Important

Each release has its own end-of-life date, so please check the table on this lifecycle page for more details.

## Upgrade to 6.1 Releases

We released PySNMP 6.1 release to support users who prefer PySMI 1.3 and above. Ilya’s changes for 4.4.13 release were merged as well.

Important

We only published releases >=6.1.3, and we are not planning to publish many more 6.1 releases. Those releases were published to ensure smooth transition for users who are still using the 4.x/5.x/6.0 releases.

We consider those releases as a stepping stone to the 6.2 releases, so please don’t stay with them for long.

Important

Each release has its own end-of-life date, so please check the table on this lifecycle page for more details.

## Upgrade to 6.2 Releases

The new sync API was added in 6.0 releases to enable synchronous I/O operations and easy migration from 4.x/5.x releases. The new API was based on asyncio and was compatible with Python 3.8 and later.

We were hoping the new sync API would be stable enough to meet the quality expectation, but it turned out to be the opposite. So we decided to remove it from 6.2 release.

Alternatively, several options are there,

- You might copy the sync wrappers from 6.1 release and use them in your code if you still need them.

- You might use other packages like pysnmp-sync-adapter, which contains sync wrappers.

However, we are not maintaining those and will provide no support on them.

Important

We published releases >=6.2.2, and we are not planning to publish any older 6.2 releases. The new 6.2 releases were published to ensure smooth transition for users who are still using the 4.x/5.x/6.0/6.1 releases.

Important

Each release has its own end-of-life date, so please check the table on this lifecycle page for more details.

## Upgrade to 7.0 Releases

The goals are

- Execute code base cleanup to meet PEP 8 requirements.

- Cherry-pick more patches from Ilya’s old master branch for his planned 5.0 release.

Breaking changes are

- Many fields and methods are renamed to meet PEP 8 requirements.

- Many types are moved to the newly introduced v3arch module.

- New types are introduced in v1arch module to simplify v1 and v2c operations.

Important

Each release has its own end-of-life date, so please check the table on this lifecycle page for more details.

## Upgrade to 7.1 Releases

The goals are

- Adapt to async DNS queries.

- Rework on GET NEXT and GET BULK related API surface.

- Apply more PEP 8 required changes.

Breaking changes are

- Transport type construction API is completely changed to support async DNS queries. For example, to create transport targets now users need to write `await UdpTransportTarget.create()` instead of `UdpTransportTarget()`.

- `next_cmd` and `bulk_cmd` parameters and return types are revised.

- `walk_cmd` and `bulk_walk_cmd` are updated accordingly.

- Dropped Python 3.8 support.

- Due to method name changes to meet PEP 8, old names are marked as deprecated. While most of them are still working due to the compatibility layer, you should switch to the new names as soon as possible. The compatibility layer will be removed in the next major release, 8.0.

## Related Resources

- Support Options

- Troubleshooting

- Samples

- API References