"The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg" installing Pillow on Alpine Linux

Question

I'm trying to run Python's Scrapy in a Docker container based on python:alpine. It was working before, but now I'd like to use Scrapy's Image Pipeline which requires me to install Pillow.

As a simplified example, I tried the following Dockerfile:

FROM python:alpine
RUN apk --update add libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libffi-dev gcc musl-dev libgcc openssl-dev curl
RUN apk add libjpeg zlib tiff freetype lcms libwebp tcl openjpeg
RUN pip install Pillow

However, when I try to build this I get an error which contains the following:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/pip-build-ft5yzzuv/Pillow/setup.py", line 744, in <module>
    zip_safe=not debug_build(), )
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/core.py", line 148, in setup
    dist.run_commands()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 955, in run_commands
    self.run_command(cmd)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 974, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/setuptools/command/install.py", line 61, in run
    return orig.install.run(self)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/command/install.py", line 545, in run
    self.run_command('build')
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/cmd.py", line 313, in run_command
    self.distribution.run_command(command)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 974, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/command/build.py", line 135, in run
    self.run_command(cmd_name)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/cmd.py", line 313, in run_command
    self.distribution.run_command(command)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 974, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/command/build_ext.py", line 339, in run
    self.build_extensions()
  File "/tmp/pip-build-ft5yzzuv/Pillow/setup.py", line 545, in build_extensions
    raise RequiredDependencyException(f)
__main__.RequiredDependencyException: jpeg

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/tmp/pip-build-ft5yzzuv/Pillow/setup.py", line 756, in <module>
    raise RequiredDependencyException(msg)
__main__.RequiredDependencyException:

The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg,
a required dependency when compiling Pillow from source.

Please see the install instructions at:
   https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

I went through the requirements on https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html and tried to find the corresponding packages for Alpine, although one I couldn't find was libimagequant, so this might be the 'culprit'. Nonetheless, it the traceback and error message seem to be saying that jpeg is missing, whereas I have installed openjpeg.

How can I modify the Dockerfile so that pip install Pillow runs?

Solution 1

In a comment that appears to have been deleted later, someone pointed me to https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/blob/c05099f45c0d94a2a98c3609a96bdb6cf7446627/depends/alpine_Dockerfile. Based on that Dockerfile I modified my own as follows:

FROM python:alpine
RUN apk --update add libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libffi-dev gcc musl-dev libgcc openssl-dev curl
RUN apk add jpeg-dev zlib-dev freetype-dev lcms2-dev openjpeg-dev tiff-dev tk-dev tcl-dev
RUN pip install Pillow

Now it builds successfully.

Solution 2

For debian

sudo apt install libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev
pip install Pillow

Solution 3

For macOS:

brew install libtiff libjpeg webp little-cms2

Reason: https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

Solution 4

I ran into this problem with docker image python:3.6-alpine I solved it by adding these packages apk add jpeg-dev zlib-dev.

Solution 5

have you seen this QA? Fail during installation of Pillow (Python module) in Linux

they say you have to update your pip and install libjpeg-dev.

View more solutions

Comments

[Shoo Limberger]

just add: apk add jpeg-dev

[Boris Mossounov]

After carefully reading error I noticed part "The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg". Those headers are held in *-dev packages. So I went to pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=libjpeg*&branch=edge and in the end "apk --no-cache --update-cache add libjpeg-turbo-dev zlib-dev" did the trick.

[Ryan Allen]

apk add jpeg-dev is all that you need to fix the "The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg" issue

[Ryan Allen]

They don't mention the alpine based solution: apk add jpeg-dev

[Jirka Hubáček]

I got out with less of linux packages: FROM python:3.7-alpine RUN apk --update add gcc libgcc musl-dev jpeg-dev zlib-dev Builds faster and fetches less of binaries.

[Carsten]

apt-get does not exist on Alpine Linux, the package manager is apk.

[Dudnikof]

Even in Ubuntu apt is now the preferred package manager for end user askubuntu.com/a/446484

[Code-Apprentice]

I only had to install libjpeg-dev on Ubuntu 20.04

[egvo]

I suppose there are many excess packages (114Mb!) but it worked for me, thanks!

[Arier]

sudo dnf install libjpeg-turbo-devel libjpeg-turbo-utils for Fedora 32

[Shirish Hirekodi]

I used this answer on Raspberry Pi 4b and it worked

[ethanfox27]

This got pillow working for me! Working in Python 3.9 and going through Django 3 by Example Third Edition.

[Lonely]

if different brew prefix then use arch -arm64 brew install libtiff libjpeg webp little-cms2

[aheze]

Same, works great on Raspberry Pi 4b! Thanks so much!

[Sandeepa Kariyawasam]

libjpeg-turbo-devel worked for redhat7

[Lauri Elias]

I only needed libjpeg.

[David Alford]

This works for using Pillow with Docker.