Install OpenSSL 1.1.1k on AlmaLinux 8

In this article, we'll explain how to install OpenSSL 1.1.1k on AlmaLinux 8.

OpenSSL is a robust, commercial-grade, and full-featured toolkit for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols. OpenSSL is a software library for applications that secure communications over computer networks against eavesdropping or need to identify the party at the other end.

OpenSSL is licensed under an Apache-style license, which means that you are free to get and use it for commercial and non-commercial purposes subject to some simple license conditions. For a list of vulnerabilities, and the releases in which they were found and fixes, see our Vulnerabilities page.

Prerequisites

• A AlmaLinux 8 installed cloud instance.
• A root user access or normal user with administrative privileges.

Install OpenSSL 1.1.1k on AlmaLinux 8

1. Keep the server up to date

Always keep the server up to date the security purpose.

# dnf update -y

2. Install development tool

We need to install a development tool and few dependencies to install OpenSSL

# dnf group install 'Development Tools'

3. Install dependencies

# dnf install perl-core zlib-devel wget -y

4. Download OpenSSL 1.1.1k

We will download the latest stable version is the 1.1.1 series. This is also our Long Term Support (LTS) version, supported until 11th September 2023.

# cd /usr/local/src/

# wget https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-1.1.1k.tar.gz

Now, extract the tar file

# tar -xzvf openssl-1.1.1k.tar.gz

5. Configure and build

Navigate to the extracted directory and configure, build, test and install OpenSSL in the default location /usr/local/ssl.

# cd openssl-1.1.1k

Configure it with PATH

# ./config --prefix=/usr/local/ssl --openssldir=/usr/local/ssl shared zlib

Output:

Now, build

# make

# make test

# make install

6. Configure it shared libraries.

Once we have successfully installed OpenSSL, configure it shared libraries.

Naviagate to the /etc/ld.so.conf.d directory and create a configuration file.

# cd /etc/ld.so.conf.d/

# vi openssl-1.1.1k.conf

Add the following path in the config file

/usr/local/ssl/lib

Save and exit

Reload the dynamic link

# ldconfig -v

7. Configure OpenSSL Binary

Now, we are going to insert the binary of our new version of OpenSSL /usr/local/ssl/bin/openssl and replace the default openssl file.

First, take a backup of existed openssl file.

# mv /bin/openssl /bin/openssl.backup

Create new environment files for OpenSSL

# vi /etc/profile.d/openssl.sh

and add the following lines

OPENSSL_PATH="/usr/local/ssl/bin"
export OPENSSL_PATH
PATH=$PATH:$OPENSSL_PATH
export PATH

Save & exit

Make the newly created file executable

# chmod +x /etc/profile.d/openssl.sh

Reload the new OpenSSL environment file and check the default PATH

# source /etc/profile.d/openssl.sh
# echo $PATH

Now, let's verify the installation and version of the OpenSSL

# which openssl
# openssl version -a

Output will be similar like:

OpenSSL 1.1.1k  25 Mar 2021
built on: Thu Aug 19 06:33:43 2021 UTC
platform: linux-x86_64
options:  bn(64,64) rc4(16x,int) des(int) idea(int) blowfish(ptr) 
compiler: gcc -fPIC -pthread -m64 -Wa,--noexecstack -Wall -O3 -DOPENSSL_USE_NODELETE -DL_ENDIAN -DOPENSSL_PIC -DOPENSSL_CPUID_OBJ -DOPENSSL_IA32_SSE2 -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT5 -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_GF2m -DSHA1_ASM -DSHA256_ASM -DSHA512_ASM -DKECCAK1600_ASM -DRC4_ASM -DMD5_ASM -DAESNI_ASM -DVPAES_ASM -DGHASH_ASM -DECP_NISTZ256_ASM -DX25519_ASM -DPOLY1305_ASM -DZLIB -DNDEBUG
OPENSSLDIR: "/usr/local/ssl"
ENGINESDIR: "/usr/local/ssl/lib/engines-1.1"
Seeding source: os-specific

That's it, the installation has been completed successfully.

In this article, we’ve learned how to install OpenSSL 1.1.1k on AlmaLinux 8.