Pip error installing cryptography on Big Sur

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/[email protected]/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/[email protected]/include"

and now you can use pip install

pip3 install cryptography==2.8