Cross Compile OpenSSL for Windows on Linux

Mai 7, 2014

This article explains how to configure and build the OpenSSL library on a Ubuntu Linux to run on 32bit or 64bit Windows. After you have set up your cross compile environment as described in my previous article, you are now ready to start compiling for example OpenSSL, which is a requirement for Qt5 that will be described in my next article.

To cross compile OpenSSL for Windows on an Ubuntu Linux using MinGW, you need to perform the following steps:

Find and download the latest sources from https://www.openssl.org/source
Unpack the file and change to that directory
Chose your OpenSSL target name, which is different from the MinGW target name and is mingw for 32bit i686-w64-mingw32 and mingw64 for 64bit x86_64-w64-mingw32
To configure for 32bit Windows, call ./Configure mingw shared --cross-compile-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32-
Note: Without the addition shared, the required runtime DLLs are not built
Run make and optionally make install (i.e. if you have added a --prefix=/install/path option to Configure)
Note: The runtime DLLs are not installed to the installation path, you find them in your local path, try ls *.dll after your build
There is a bug in OpenSSL that must be fixed manually: In the include file openssl/x509v3.h add just after line #define HEADER_X509V3_H on the top the following lines:
```
#ifdef X509_NAME
#undef X509_NAME
#endif
```

It is possible to do everything fully automated, e.g. in a Jenkins build script:

MINGW=${MINGW:-x86_64-w64-mingw32}
WORKSPACE=${WORKSPACE:-$(pwd)}
BUILD_NUMBER=${BUILD_NUMBER:-0}
ARCH=${ARCH:-${MINGW%%-*}}

cd ${WORKSPACE}
source=https://www.openssl.org/source
file=$(wget -qO- $source | sed -n 's,.*<a *href="\(openssl-[0-9][^"]*\.tar\.gz\)".*,\1,p'  | head -1)
path=${file%.tar.gz}
wget -qO$file $source/$file
tar xf $file
cd $path
version=${path#openssl-}

case ${MINGW} in
    (*i?86*)
        TARGET=mingw
        ;;
    (*x86_64*)
        TARGET=mingw64
        ;;
    (*) false;;
esac

./Configure ${TARGET} shared --cross-compile-prefix=${MINGW}- --prefix=${WORKSPACE}/usr

make
make install
cp *.dll ${WORKSPACE}/usr/lib/

cd ${WORKSPACE}
zip -r ${path}~windows.${BUILD_NUMBER}_${ARCH}.zip usr

Build MinGW Targets in Docker

I support a maintained docker image that contains an Ubuntu based build environment and build scripts for several libraries and programs. This is i.e. QT and all it’s dependencies, and my own projects with all their dependencies:

source: https://github.com/mwaeckerlin/mingw
image: https://hub.docker.com/r/mwaeckerlin/mingw

List all available build scripts:

docker run -it –rm mwaeckerlin/mingw -c ‹ls /build-*.sh›

Show options for building OpenSSL:

docker run -it --rm mwaeckerlin/mingw /build-openssl.sh -h

Compile latest OpenSSL in the current working directory:

docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/workdir -u $(id -u) mwaeckerlin/mingw /build-openssl.sh -d

Build ICU version 57-1 in the current working directory:

docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/workdir -u $(id -u) mwaeckerlin/mingw /build-icu.sh -d -v 57-1

Just Download Built Archives

You can download already built images for 32bit and 64bit on my repository: https://dev.marc.waeckerlin.org/repository/windows/

comments title

Marc Wäckerlin – Cross Compile on Ubuntu Linux for Windows Using MinGW am 20. Februar 2015 um 14:52 Uhr

[…] hacks have gone, cross-compilation is very simple. This is my first example of a 3rd-party library. Next article will talk about cross compiling […]

Ali Abdulkadir am 12. September 2016 um 16:35 Uhr

What’s the purpose of editing those two lines?

Marc Wäckerlin am 17. Oktober 2016 um 14:21 Uhr

You mean the «undef»? This macro is defined in more than one files. At the second definition, the compiler complains. So I first undefine it, then it can be redefined later in the file.

Marc Wäckerlin am 31. März 2017 um 11:46 Uhr

Editing the two lines is no more necessary.

Naveed Jamil am 28. August 2017 um 15:53 Uhr

Hey,
Thank you for your efforts on this. I am facing an issue while trying to cross compile openssl-fips for windows on linux. What I have done is I have added the flag fips in ./Configure but while executing the file it gives the following stack trace error:

[ -z «libcrypto» ] || x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc -D_WINDLL -DOPENSSL_PIC -DOPENSSL_THREADS -D_MT -DDSO_WIN32 -DL_ENDIAN -O3 -Wall -DWIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN -DUNICODE -D_UNICODE -DOPENSSL_IA32_SSE2 -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT5 -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_GF2m -I/usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0/include -DRC4_ASM -DSHA1_ASM -DSHA256_ASM -DSHA512_ASM -DMD5_ASM -DAES_ASM -DVPAES_ASM -DBSAES_ASM -DWHIRLPOOL_ASM -DGHASH_ASM -DECP_NISTZ256_ASM -Iinclude \
-DFINGERPRINT_PREMAIN_DSO_LOAD -o fips_premain_dso.exe \
/usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0/lib/fips_premain.c /usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0/lib/fipscanister.o \
libcrypto.a -lws2_32 -lgdi32 -lcrypt32
/usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0/lib/fipscanister.o: In function `FIPS_module_mode›:
(.text+0x143): undefined reference to `__stack_chk_fail›
/usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0/lib/fipscanister.o: In function `FIPS_selftest_failed›:
(.text+0x25a): undefined reference to `__stack_chk_fail›
/usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0/lib/fipscanister.o: In function `FIPS_incore_fingerprint›:
(.text+0x447): undefined reference to `__stack_chk_fail›
/usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0/lib/fipscanister.o: In function `FIPS_check_incore_fingerprint›:
(.text+0x5ef): undefined reference to `__stack_chk_fail›
…. and the stack trace goes on.

Do you have any pointers as to how to resolve this issue. Please let me know if you can provide any help. I will be grateful.

Naveed Jamil am 28. August 2017 um 15:59 Uhr

Also I have already installed openssl fips in the docker container.

Marc Wäckerlin am 1. September 2017 um 10:07 Uhr

Hi Naveed Jamil

Perhaps this could help: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4492799/undefined-reference-to-stack-chk-fail

Dirk am 29. November 2017 um 20:19 Uhr

Hello Marc,

I want build this software for windows:

https://sourceforge.net/p/fastsvncrawler/code/HEAD/tree/

I can build this under debian 9 with some minor changes in the file

https://sourceforge.net/p/fastsvncrawler/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/CMakeLists.txt

Can you help me please using your docker mingw buildsystem to build this for windows ?

It’s my first try for cross compiling.

Greeting Dirk

Marc Wäckerlin am 30. November 2017 um 12:52 Uhr

Dirk, I hate cmake, so I won’t use it, it’s just another unnecessary «me-too»-build-system. Use the autotools. So I won’t actively support it. But principially it should work, if you call your build command somehow like this:

docker run -it –rm -v $(pwd):/workdir -u $(id -u) mwaeckerlin/mingw your-build-command

Dirk am 30. November 2017 um 19:08 Uhr

Hi Marc,

I don’t like cmake too, so i can understand you.
But in this case this tool works for me on my linux vm side and I’ll try to translate ist for running on windows.
It’s 10 times faster on my linux vm docker as the «svn list» command on windows host.

Thank you for your work on docker/mingw.

Marc Wäckerlin am 30. November 2017 um 20:27 Uhr

Did you check Cross Compile on Ubuntu Linux for Windows Using MinGW? There you find the basics for the autotools. I like them, because they simplify such a complex thing as cross compiling. You’ll need to convince your build system to use x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc as replacement for gcc and thelike.

You know that you can run docker run -it –rm -v $(pwd):/workdir -u $(id -u) mwaeckerlin/mingw bas for your experiments?

Thorsten B. am 22. September 2022 um 14:10 Uhr

Hi,
any plans to update to hub.docker.com/mwaeckerlin/mingw to 22.04LTS?
regards

Marc Wäckerlin am 5. Dezember 2022 um 10:18 Uhr

Thanks for the hint. It is recompiled, whenever I update the base `mwaeckerlin/ubuntu-base`. That inherits latest `ubuntu`. I just triggered a rebuild that then will be in the latest Ubuntu version.