Two big flaws in the `configure` script -- have located them, cannot fix

[Chris Rapier]

When you ran the configure script what options did you use?

If you are using --with-ssl-dir=[whatever] you usually need to append
"--with-rpath=-Wl,-rpath," so you get
./configure --with-ssl-dir=[whatever] --with-rpath=-Wl,-rpath,

This trips me up a lot.

On Fri, Sep 8, 2023 at 2:23 AM Gordon Steemson <gsteemso at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> On 06/09/2023, Darren Tucker <dtucker at dtucker.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 7 Sept 2023 at 15:07, Gordon Steemson <gsteemso at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> I'm trying to install OpenSSH and have run into two different things
> >> that cause the `configure` script to come to a violent halt.  The
> >> first is [...the zlib version check that's already been fixed, nothing
> to see here folks...]
> >> The second problem is more serious.  While I can find no reason for
> >> the code that checks the OpenSSL library version to fai[...]
> >> I hope you folks have better luck investigating this than I've had.
> >
> > That's unlikely since you have not provided any details that might
> > allow us to do so, including but not limited to: what the error
> > message was,
>
> Yes. My bad.  To start off -- the ./configure output proceeded
> uneventfully until:
>
> $ checking for openssl... /usr/bin/openssl
> $ checking for openssl/opensslv.h... yes
> $ checking OpenSSL header version... not found
> $ configure: error: OpenSSL version header not found.
>
> From squinting at the `configure` script, this appears to mean that
> the test program fell over somewhere in the brief span between
> #include-ing the header file and trying to use the values declared
> therein.  It all looks spelled correctly... no clues there.
>
> > the OS/platform, compiler, OpenSSL implementation and version, configure
> options, CFLAGS/LDFLAGS, what the config.log contained.
>
> I spent a while typing all of that out and then discovered it was all
> duplicated in `config.log`; then I further discovered that most of it
> is probably irrelevant, as the problem seems to be caused by the
> configure script randomly inserting an '/opt/' into my openssl path,
> then acting surprised when the crypto library isn't at the new,
> nonexistent location.  There is no 'opt' component in any of the
> environment variables, nor in any command-line arguments.
>
> In more detail:  All of the software components involved are in the
> Homebrew repository on my Mac, each of them located at
> `/Users/gsteemso/Brewery/Cellar/{packagename}/{version}/`.  (I have
> instead downloaded the OpenSSH package, and only the OpenSSH package,
> directly from you guys as the Homebrew version may or may not be not
> working properly -- I can't really tell.)
>
> For whatever reason, the `configure` script -- which had thitherto
> been happily chewing on my OpenSSL installation in
> `/Users/gsteemso/Brewery/Cellar/openssl/1.1.1v/*` -- abruptly tried to
> load `/Users/gsteemso/Brewery/opt/openssl/lib/libcrypto.1.1.dylib`,
> and then complained when the library was not found at this fictitious
> location.  (Note how the `Cellar/openssl/1.1.1v` section was abruptly
> replaced by an `opt/openssl` out of nowhere.)  A text search of your
> entire installation package found mention of hard-coded pathnames that
> look like this in exactly one place -- inside the github configuration
> files, which should not have even been under consideration as I do not
> yet have a git installation (constructing one is in fact the entire
> reason I am currently attempting to install OpenSSH).
>
> The reason I am telling you this, even though the problem may or may
> not in fact be with the OpenSSH configuration at all, is that the
> attempt to load a crypto library from the wrong place appears to be
> taking place in the beginning of the little test program that wants to
> read OpenSSL's version-number declarations.  The error message
> produced is thus wholly misleading, and without extensive testing
> based on a single line in the config.log, I would not have discovered
> even as little as I have.
>
> At this point my hypothesis is that the chain of #include statements,
> in the various OpenSSL headers, is accidentally doing something stupid
> in a way that has not yet affected very many people.  Should I
> determine that there is in fact a problem with the OpenSSH side beyond
> the suboptimal `configure` messages, I will report back here; in the
> meanwhile, I believe I have probably wasted enough of your time
> already.
>
> Thank you all for all that you do here,
>
> Gordon Steemson
>
> --
> The world’s only gsteemso
> _______________________________________________
> openssh-unix-dev mailing list
> openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org
> https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev
>