pip install xmlsec broken after libxmlsec1 updated to v=1.3.0

[taimingl]

Bug description

When following the instructions here to deploy PostHog locally, I wasn't able to install one of the required python libraries, xmlsec, particularly pip wasn't able to build the wheel.

Online search suggested that libxmlsec1 was updated to 1.3.0 on 4/12/23, and this latest version does not work with pip install. There is a temporary workaround that reverts libxmlsec1 back to 1.2.37, which eventually allowed me to pip install xmlsec and deploy PostHog locally. Please see more details about the workaround here

How to reproduce

Follow the instructions here to deploy PostHog locally:

1. brew install libxml2 libxmlsec1 pkg-config (libxmlsec1 defaults to 1.3.0 now)
2. create a virtual env with python3.10
3. pip install xmlsec==1.3.13 (one of the required libraries in requirements.txt)

Environment

• PostHog Cloud US, project ID: [please provide from https://app.posthog.com/project/settings#project-id]
• PostHog Cloud EU, project ID: [please provide from https://eu.posthog.com/project/settings#project-id]
• PostHog Hobby self-hosted with docker compose, version/commit: main branch @ e962afa
• PostHog self-hosted with Kubernetes (deprecated, see "Sunsetting Kubernetes support"), version/commit: [please provide]

Additional context

My machine is macOS x86.
I don't think there's anything for PostHog team to fix at this time besides maybe inserting a note about the issue and the workaround on the Deploying locally page just like many other existing notes, which were super helpful in my experiment.

Thank you for your bug report – we love squashing them!

[Robokishan]

Just in case somebody looking for alternative incase of to avoid hacking on brew, use conda-forge for setting up posthog on mac
and steps

1. conda create --name posthog python=3.10
2. conda activate posthog
3. conda install libxmlsec1==1.2.37 pkg-config
4. pip install -r requirements.txt

This work like a charm!