[NBLUG/talk] install Crypt::SSLeay Mandrivia - Solution

Walter Hansen gandalf at sonic.net
Fri Aug 4 13:06:34 PDT 2006


System:
Sonic CoLocated server Mandrivia 2006 2.6.12-15mdk
In use as a production web and mail server.

Problem:
Failure on installing the perl module Crypt::SSLeay in CPAN. The moudule
makes it possible for LWP (http calls) to use https protocal. In short to
request secure pages from a web server.

Analysis showed that .h (header) files were missing for stock openssl.
Attemps to install source using the the Mandrivia package manager for the
stock openssl were unsuccessful. As I remember there was a missing
dependancy that is supposed to be in the orginal package (catch 22). It
seemed apparant that Linux distributions that are rpm based have problems
with this but no solutions were found on the web.

Solution:
I didn't want to mess up openssl services on the server as they were
constantly in use. I chose to download the source code and compile it
myself in a not-stock location. The idea was to leave the stock openssl
working as it was and to use the new installation for the nessicary header
files. To avoid any conflicts I got the same openssl version as the rpm
one.

I read the INSTALL file and set the installation directories in the
./configure command. This left me with a usr/local tree in a non-standard
place. I tried the Crypt::SSLeay in CPAN again and found that it still did
not understand where to find the newly installed libraries. I created two
links in the usr/local/openssl directory, include and lib, pointing to
usr/local/include and usr/local/lib.

Now CPAN happily intalled the module. I then tested it and it works fine.

I created a file in the non standard usr directory called
ReadMeBeforeAltering with complete notes as to what was done and why it
was done and when it was done.

Conclusion:
There probaly is a more elagant way to do what I did. I'll likely hear it
now. That's fine and I would be interested in knowing more. This solution
works. The solution took only an hour (with  reading docs) to implement.






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