How to build OpenSSL with MinGW in Windows? [closed]

Question

I want to build OpenSSL in Windows with MinGW,
How can I do that? Please help me.
Thanks.

Nieves

Answer 1

This is an extract from a personal how-to I wrote. It has since been transformed to a script (look at the OpenSSL section, obviously). It assumes you have a working installation of MinGW and that you have a working MSys console.

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OpenSSL

To build OpenSSL, you need a working Perl installation.

Download OpenSSL from its official website and decompress the archive.

Windows 32/64 bits - MinGW

You must run these commands from a MSys console.

For 32 bits:

perl Configure mingw no-shared no-asm --prefix=/c/OpenSSL

For 64 bits:

perl Configure mingw64 no-shared no-asm --prefix=/C/OpenSSL-x64

Then:

make depend

make

make install

The make depend line is only needed on the most recent OpenSSL version if you specified any of the no-... options.

Note that this will compile OpenSSL in static mode.

If at some point you get a "make (e=2):" error, ensure you don't have another "make.exe" in your PATH or just type /bin/make instead of make.

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You may, of course, need to compile it with other options (such as dynamic linking, or asm enabled). So feel free to look at the help perl Configure can provide to know more about the available options.

Indoor

Thanks for your help. i accomplish your instruction and build OpenSSL, but it doesn't make DLL files? where is it? – Nieves

@HarryFox: You may have noticed the no-shared parameter which explicitely disables shared library generation. Since on Windows, shared libraries are DLL you have your answer :) Now I never had to build OpenSSL's DLLs but I guess replacing no-shared with shared might do the trick. – Indoor

From my [very limited] experience, Strawberry Perl (5.14.2.1 for x64) hangs in MSYS. ActivePerl worked great. – Synopsis

For more recent versions of openssl, you'll need to run make depend before running make if you're passing any of the no-xyz flags to Configure. – Synopsis

@3noch: Thanks. I updated both the answer and the original how-to. – Indoor

@ereOn: I believe you need make depend before make... thanks for updating! – Synopsis

Are the static outputs still named libcrypto.a and libssl.a or am I doing something wrong? (I would expect a .lib extension.) – Synopsis

@3noch: I get .a files too. Which is what one would expect to use with MinGW. What did you expect ? – Indoor

@ereOn: I was under the impression that building with MSYS somehow generated native Windows binaries (e.g. .lib files that could be linked in to any Windows project outside of MSYS). I must be wrong? – Synopsis

@3noch: There is no such thing as a "native Windows binary format" for libraries. You can generate libraries that are usable by a specific compiler toolchain. On Windows that can be cl.exe (Microsoft) or gcc.exe (MinGW). Now for C libraries, sometimes the resulting library can be used by both compiler because they use similar function decoration mechanism. If you want to build OpenSSL for Visual Studio, read the link I gave, as it contains the appropriate instructions as well ;) – Indoor

I know "thanks" are typically discouraged, but working with OpenSSL has been a real pain in the arse-- I have no idea why this dependency has to be so difficult to work with. Your guide has been book marked and should be referenced on all INSTALL pages. This worked fast and perfectly. – Hollands

@RLH: Thanks for the kind words. I had to struggle a lot with it myself. Glad my guide can make other people's life easier. – Indoor

superb, I was struggling to build openssl since 5 days. you came to rescue me. – Cellist

I did make test, all test pass. you may want to add this as a final step to the recipe you made. – Cellist

When I run any of the make commands in msys I get "/bin/sh: /user/bin/perl: No such file or directory" even though I just used perl to configure. – Lei

@BradenSteffaniak Don't use the perl that comes with msys, use ActivePerl (that you must install and reference explicitely). It won't work otherwise. – Indoor