How to static link Linux software that uses ./configure?

Question

I would like to compile NRPE static, so I can copy the compiled binary to an OmniOS server, where I don't want gcc to be installed on. I would prefer to install NRPE with SSl support from a repository, but such doesn't seam to exist, so I would like to compile it myself. However the ./configure script doesn't contain a static option it seams

~/nrpe-2.15# ./configure --help | grep static
~/nrpe-2.15# ./configure --help | grep share
  --datadir=DIR          read-only architecture-independent data [PREFIX/share]
  --sharedstatedir=DIR   modifiable architecture-independent data [PREFIX/com]

Question

How do I compile a program that uses configure statically?

Kalie

It seems that this package does not support static linking... – Noreennorene

possible duplicate of How to staticly-link a complex program – Conservative

Answer 1

Try this:

./configure LDFLAGS="-static"

Humdinger

But I get a lot of warning: Using 'xxx' in statically linked applications requires at runtime the shared libraries from the glibc version used for linking – Protractile

Yes, that's true, there are some things that will be dlopend at runtime. I think DNS lookups need this, for one. It's not ideal. :-( – Humdinger

If you are trying to static link against glibc, you can't run on OmniOS anyway, which requires the illumos libc -- glibc only works with a Linux kernel. – Arterialize

I'm getting configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables when I run this flag. – Babby

My error was caused by a missing package, libstdc++-static since the program under question was using c++. This tutorial helped me – Babby

Answer 2

For people coming from google, I found that if you have libtool part of your build, you will need to:

1. ./configure CFLAGS="-static" ....
2. make LDFLAGS="-all-static"

You can see that -all-static with libtool --help --mode=link

Pontoon

It's important here that, as shown, LDFLAGS="-all-static" is given only to make, and not set at ./configure time, because otherwise it would break the configure scripts (because only the libtool wrapper accepts it, compilers like gcc themselves do not). – Archaism

Yet another reason to hate autotools. :( – Apparent

Just a heads up, be sure to note the generated LDFLAGS from configure's output. You may be required to re-add any other options that are present, like -L to include specific library paths. – Ripleigh