Attempt to rebuild previous versions of clients needed for communication with existing older production infrastructure, even after Homebrew has removed them as deprecated upstream.
Switch between Homebrew-installed versions with:
brew unlink <FORMULA>@<FROM_VERSION>; brew link <FORMULA>@<TO_VERSION>
Homebrew may have previously included a working version that can still be extracted directly into your own tap. You can typically use this version as-is.
brew extract --version=<VERSION> <FORMULA> <YOUR_GITHUB_USER>/<YOUR_TAP_REPOSITORY_NAME>
Example:
brew extract --version=1.26 kubernetes-cli <YOUR_GITHUB_USER>/<YOUR_TAP_REPOSITORY_NAME>
>>> ==> Searching repository history
>>> ==> Writing formula for kubernetes-cli from revision NNNNNNN to:
>>> /opt/homebrew/Library/Taps/<YOUR_GITHUB_USER>/<YOUR_TAP_REPOSITORY_NAME>/Formula/kubernetes-cli@1.26.rb
Then
brew install kubernetes-cli@1.26
For more, see: Homebrew versions documentation
If it is not possible to extract a working version, see below for using, and for making, similar formulae.
You can also use MacPorts instead of brew for this, if you're running on macOS and MacPorts has the software you need.
Example: sudo port install kubectl-1.27
When MacPorts has multiple versions and the maintainer has set up a selector, switch between them with port select ….
Example:
port select --summary | grep kubectl
>>> kubectl kubectl1.26 kubectl1.23 kubectl1.24 kubectl1.25 kubectl1.26 kubectl1.27 none
sudo port select kubcctl kubectl1.27
>>> Selecting 'kubectl1.27' for 'kubectl' succeeded. 'kubectl1.27' is now active.
brew install rdump/versions/<formula>
Or brew tap rdump/versions and then brew install <formula>.
Example: brew install rdump/versions/kubernetes-cli@1.24.4
If Homebrew no longer has a version that can be extracted (see above), you can pull the bottle update commit info and make a formula for the old version.
Information for most of these formulae is derived using Homebrew/core logs to get the bottle update commit ID for the various versions. The formulae are then copied to versioned files in the repo, and edited to have a unique class, lists of requirements, &c.
Example: The kubectl (kubernetes-cli) bottle update commit ID, for the version you want to keep around for rebuilding, can most easily be pulled from your local homebrew-core clone's log.
cd ~/src/github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core && git checkout master && git pull && \
git --no-pager log --oneline master -- Formula/kubernetes-cli.rb | grep "update 1\.24.* bottle"
>>> d55b2975852 kubernetes-cli: update 1.24.4 bottle.
…
That bottle update commit ID can be used to git checkout d55b2975852 (into detached HEAD state) for seeing your version-current formula of interest with bbedit Formula/kubernetes-cli.rb (or use another editor of your choice, but BBEdit doesn't suck®)
Copy that formula or necessary parts to your intended formula file in your versions repo, update class name appropriately, and build locally.
In some cases (increasingly as the version ages), you'll need to debug problems related to golang version requirements and the like.
For more docs, check brew help, look at man brew, or check Homebrew's documentation site.