Pip error installing cryptography on Big Sur - macos

Question

Using pip version 20.2.4, Python 3.8.2 and Big Sur 11.0.1.
When I run pip install cryptography, I get this error:
Building wheels for collected packages: cffi
Building wheel for cffi (setup.py): started
Building wheel for cffi (setup.py): finished with status 'error'
ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
command: /Users/xxx/projects/xxx/venv/bin/python -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/private/var/folders/g8/nj6ghjhgj11j84rsjmqqb00000gn/T/pip-install-aufpkz3c/cffi/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/private/var/folders/g8/nj6ghjhgj11j84rsjmqqb00000gn/T/pip-install-aufpkz3c/cffi/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' bdist_wheel -d /private/var/folders/g8/nj6ghjhgj11j84rsjmqqb00000gn/T/pip-wheel-asotxqfl
cwd: /private/var/folders/g8/nj6ghjhgj11j84rsjmqqb00000gn/T/pip-install-aufpkz3c/cffi/
Complete output (42 lines):
running bdist_wheel
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8
creating build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/backend_ctypes.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/error.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/setuptools_ext.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/__init__.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/cffi_opcode.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/vengine_gen.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/pkgconfig.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/model.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/ffiplatform.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/api.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/vengine_cpy.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/commontypes.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/lock.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/recompiler.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/cparser.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/verifier.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/_cffi_include.h -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/parse_c_type.h -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/_embedding.h -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
copying cffi/_cffi_errors.h -> build/lib.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/cffi
running build_ext
building '_cffi_backend' extension
creating build/temp.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8
creating build/temp.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/c
clang -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -iwithsysroot/System/Library/Frameworks/System.framework/PrivateHeaders -iwithsysroot/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.8/Headers -arch arm64 -arch x86_64 -DUSE__THREAD -DHAVE_SYNC_SYNCHRONIZE -I/usr/local/Cellar/libffi/3.3/include -I/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/ffi -I/Users/xxxx/projects/xxxx/venv/include -I/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.8/include/python3.8 -c c/_cffi_backend.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.14.6-x86_64-3.8/c/_cffi_backend.o
c/_cffi_backend.c:5854:2: error: Apple Arm64 ABI requires ffi_prep_cif_var
#error Apple Arm64 ABI requires ffi_prep_cif_var
^
c/_cffi_backend.c:6304:9: warning: 'ffi_prep_closure' is deprecated [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
if (ffi_prep_closure(closure, &cif_descr->cif,
^
/usr/local/Cellar/libffi/3.3/include/ffi.h:341:18: note: 'ffi_prep_closure' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
__attribute__((deprecated))
^
1 warning and 1 error generated.
error: command 'clang' failed with exit status 1
----------------------------------------
ERROR: Failed building wheel for cffi
I didn't ever encounter this before I upgraded MacOS. Any idea what I can try?

Answer 1

First install openssl
brew install openssl
Then export compiler options:
export CRYPTOGRAPHY_SUPPRESS_LINK_FLAGS="1"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl#1.1/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl#1.1/include"
and now you can use pip install
pip3 install cryptography==2.8

Answer 2

env LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix openssl#1.1)/lib" CFLAGS="-I$(brew --prefix openssl#1.1)/include" pip install cryptography

Answer 3

The answer from #serge-g above worked well on M1 Mac / ARM64 with Homebrew and Big Sur 11.6.
I had to make the following changes:
brew install openssl
export CRYPTOGRAPHY_SUPPRESS_LINK_FLAGS="1"
export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/openssl#1.1/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/openssl#1.1/include"
At that point installing cryptography worked for me via
pip3 install cryptography==2.8
FYI, in my case cryptography was a dependency of the Azure CLI Python package (pip3 install azure-cli). Thanks to #serge-g for pointing me in the right direction!

Answer 4

According to this issue on cryptography's GitHub, as of November 2020, simply upgrading pip to the latest version allows this to work correctly. I was running into this error myself on pip 19 and upgrading to pip 21.0.1 fixed the issue for me.

Answer 5

You should try poetry shell and pip install cryptography