2 NOTES FOR THE WINDOWS PLATFORMS
3 ===============================
5 Requirement details for native (Visual C++) builds
6 --------------------------------------------------
8 In addition to the requirements and instructions listed in INSTALL,
9 these are required as well:
11 - You need Perl. We recommend ActiveState Perl, available from
12 https://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl. Another viable alternative
13 appears to be Strawberry Perl, http://strawberryperl.com.
14 You also need the perl module Text::Template, available on CPAN.
15 Please read NOTES.PERL for more information.
17 - You need a C compiler. OpenSSL has been tested to build with these:
21 - Netwide Assembler, a.k.a. NASM, available from http://www.nasm.us,
22 is required if you intend to utilize assembler modules. Note that NASM
23 is the only supported assembler. The Microsoft provided assembler is NOT
27 Visual C++ (native Windows)
28 ---------------------------
30 Installation directories
32 The default installation directories are derived from environment
35 For VC-WIN32, the following defaults are use:
37 PREFIX: %ProgramFiles(86)%\OpenSSL
38 OPENSSLDIR: %CommonProgramFiles(86)%\SSL
40 For VC-WIN64, the following defaults are use:
42 PREFIX: %ProgramW6432%\OpenSSL
43 OPENSSLDIR: %CommonProgramW6432%\SSL
45 Should those environment variables not exist (on a pure Win32
46 installation for examples), these fallbacks are used:
48 PREFIX: %ProgramFiles%\OpenSSL
49 OPENSSLDIR: %CommonProgramFiles%\SSL
51 ALSO NOTE that those directories are usually write protected, even if
52 your account is in the Administrators group. To work around that,
53 start the command prompt by right-clicking on it and choosing "Run as
54 Administrator" before running 'nmake install'. The other solution
55 is, of course, to choose a different set of directories by using
56 --prefix and --openssldir when configuring.
61 Cygwin implements a Posix/Unix runtime system (cygwin1.dll) on top of the
62 Windows subsystem and provides a bash shell and GNU tools environment.
63 Consequently, a make of OpenSSL with Cygwin is virtually identical to the
66 To build OpenSSL using Cygwin, you need to:
68 * Install Cygwin (see https://cygwin.com/)
70 * Install Cygwin Perl and ensure it is in the path. Recall that
71 as least 5.10.0 is required.
73 * Run the Cygwin bash shell
75 Apart from that, follow the Unix instructions in INSTALL.
77 NOTE: "make test" and normal file operations may fail in directories
78 mounted as text (i.e. mount -t c:\somewhere /home) due to Cygwin
79 stripping of carriage returns. To avoid this ensure that a binary
80 mount is used, e.g. mount -b c:\somewhere /home.
82 It is also possible to create "conventional" Windows binaries that use
83 the Microsoft C runtime system (msvcrt.dll or crtdll.dll) using MinGW
84 development add-on for Cygwin. MinGW is supported even as a standalone
85 setup as described in the following section. In the context you should
86 recognize that binaries targeting Cygwin itself are not interchangeable
87 with "conventional" Windows binaries you generate with/for MinGW.
93 * Compiler and shell environment installation:
95 MinGW and MSYS are available from http://www.mingw.org/, both are
96 required. Run the installers and do whatever magic they say it takes
97 to start MSYS bash shell with GNU tools and matching Perl on its PATH.
98 "Matching Perl" refers to chosen "shell environment", i.e. if built
99 under MSYS, then Perl compiled for MSYS must be used.
101 Alternatively, one can use MSYS2 from https://msys2.github.io/,
102 which includes MingW (32-bit and 64-bit).
104 * It is also possible to cross-compile it on Linux by configuring
105 with './Configure --cross-compile-prefix=i386-mingw32- mingw ...'.
106 Other possible cross compile prefixes include x86_64-w64-mingw32-
107 and i686-w64-mingw32-.
110 Linking your application
111 ------------------------
113 This section applies to non-Cygwin builds.
115 If you link with static OpenSSL libraries then you're expected to
116 additionally link your application with WS2_32.LIB, GDI32.LIB,
117 ADVAPI32.LIB, CRYPT32.LIB and USER32.LIB. Those developing
118 non-interactive service applications might feel concerned about
119 linking with GDI32.LIB and USER32.LIB, as they are justly associated
120 with interactive desktop, which is not available to service
121 processes. The toolkit is designed to detect in which context it's
122 currently executed, GUI, console app or service, and act accordingly,
123 namely whether or not to actually make GUI calls. Additionally those
124 who wish to /DELAYLOAD:GDI32.DLL and /DELAYLOAD:USER32.DLL and
125 actually keep them off service process should consider implementing
126 and exporting from .exe image in question own _OPENSSL_isservice not
127 relying on USER32.DLL. E.g., on Windows Vista and later you could:
129 __declspec(dllexport) __cdecl BOOL _OPENSSL_isservice(void)
131 if (ProcessIdToSessionId(GetCurrentProcessId(),&sess))
136 If you link with OpenSSL .DLLs, then you're expected to include into
137 your application code small "shim" snippet, which provides glue between
138 OpenSSL BIO layer and your compiler run-time. See the OPENSSL_Applink
139 manual page for further details.