Package libffi was not found in the pkg-config search path REDHAT6.5

Question

I am trying to run setup.py related to a proprietary software installation and it has dependencies on libffi.

Since its Redhat 6.5 the python version was 2.6 and i installed python 2.7.

libffi was already installed and when i create a virtualenv and try installing the software by running the setup.py i get the following error:

No package 'libffi' found
Package libffi was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `libffi.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'libffi' found
c/_cffi_backend.c:15:17: error: ffi.h: No such file or directory
In file included from c/_cffi_backend.c:63:

yum list libffi
Loaded plugins: product-id, refresh-packagekit, security, subscription-manager
This system is not registered to Red Hat Subscription Management. You can use subscription-manager to register.
Installed Packages
libffi.x86_64                  3.0.5-3.2.el6                   @anaconda-RedHatEnterpriseLinux-201311111358.x86_64/6.5
Available Packages
libffi.i686                    3.0.5-3.2.el6                   rhel-local

My query is how do we modify the pkg-config search path. to point to libffi.pc?

Hi, I already have the package installed inspite of which i am getting this error. Please refer to the above output "yum list libffi" — Aprameya NDS, Jun 29 '16 at 20:47
@jordanm - Thanks a lot it really helped. You are right i downloaded the rpm pkg for libffi-dev "libffi-devel-3.0.5-3.2.el6.x86_64.rpm" and installed and it worked. I was under the impression that libffi and libffi-dev are same. But its not. Thanks once again. — Aprameya NDS, Jun 29 '16 at 21:05
@Aprameya NDS. Actually yum can inform : `yum provides */ffi.h` , `yum provides */libffi.pc` ... or use the online search http://rpm.pbone.net/ ... and have a look at the package list http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.8/os/x86_64/Packages/ — Knud Larsen, Jun 29 '16 at 22:27

score 38 · Answer 1 · answered May 07 '17 at 03:32

38

try after installing:

sudo apt-get install libffi6 libffi-dev

answered May 07 '17 at 03:32

Harun-Ur-Rashid

3,338
1
15
22

2

Not sure why, but I have a docker build that has never failed... today it fails with this error so I added libffi-dev and the build works again. It would be nice to know WHAT changed, but hey... it's working again, right? – frozenjim Sep 17 '20 at 17:53
1

same comment as @frozenjim. Works after adding `libffi libffi-dev`. Note that `libffi6` could have been outdated now – Triguna Jan 11 '22 at 12:12
1

for alpine-linux worked for me just `apk add libffi-dev` – ניר May 31 '22 at 10:35
I had an issue with GCC and one of the lines in errors was saying `No package 'libffi' found`. I have added `libffi-dev` and it started working. thanks – Thaian Aug 09 '22 at 10:31
1

Worked for me only with: `sudo apt-get install libffi-dev` – Alon Samuel Oct 12 '22 at 11:15

score 21 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 09 '17 at 17:57

21

You will need the development version of libffi to install libraries which depends on libffi :

sudo yum install libffi-devel

This worked for me

answered Jun 09 '17 at 17:57

nishith

1,223
1
12
21

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 17 '19 at 06:57

6

I had the same issue for MacOS. I assume the solution should be similar.

nano ~/.bash_profile

Add these two lines below to the end of your bash_profile so that it can be discovered

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/opt/libffi/lib/pkgconfig"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/libffi/lib"

Save and quit and restart Terminal

answered Apr 17 '19 at 06:57

cenkarioz

569
7
7

can you share your stack trace and what you are trying to achieve? – cenkarioz May 02 '19 at 19:12
1

Commenting to simply point out that it does work for some users (for me it did). – R.J. Aug 13 '19 at 04:18

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 27 '22 at 16:53

5

I got the same error from docker build. So I added just below command in my Dockerfile and solved my issue.

PS: my base image is alpine-linux

RUN apk update \
&& apk --no-cache --update add libffi-dev

answered Jun 27 '22 at 16:53

Gokce Demir

459
4
5

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 02 '19 at 05:45

Faced a similar issue while installing paramiko using pip3:

$ pip3 install paramiko

ERROR:

Package libffi was not found in the pkg-config search path. Perhaps you should add the directory containing `libffi.pc' to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable No package 'libffi' found

No package 'libffi' found c/_cffi_backend.c:15:17: fatal error: ffi.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated.

distutils.errors.DistutilsExecError: command 'x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc' failed with exit status 1

RESOLUTION:

$ sudo apt-get install libffi-dev
$ pip3 install paramiko

Successfully installed asn1crypto bcrypt cffi cryptography-1.2.3 paramiko-1.16.0 pycparser pynacl six-1.10.0

trying to install audio-to-midi, this worked for me – apc518 Feb 26 '22 at 04:29 — apc518, Feb 26 '22 at 04:29

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered May 16 '20 at 13:31

I was using python 3.8 and getting the same error while wheel was trying to setup cffi on a conda environment. I tried installing libffi and libffi-dev (and exiting the terminal and reactivating the environment each time was installing something!) but with no luck. I then thought that maybe downgrading python to 3.7 might solve the issue. I did that in my conda environment (just activated the environment and ran conda install python=3.7 and then all of the sudden libffi was found! wheel was able to setup cffi and all were working like a charm!

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 21 '20 at 18:05

0

try this

sudo apt-get install -y python3-cffi

answered Sep 21 '20 at 18:05

Aleem

549
6
13

Package libffi was not found in the pkg-config search path REDHAT6.5

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